Transitioning: Dramatic changes for sustainability underway at DeWitt Clinton High School.

… precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society.  It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person. 
                                                James Baldwin, from “A Talk to Teachers” (1963)

Sometimes it’s hard to accept the idea that change in schools can come so slow.  If you’re in the change business, as I picture myself to be, you must have faith that the small steps started today can and will result in something more profound in the future.  This means working not for immediate but eventual results.  Perhaps not too much different than what teachers have always had to content themselves with as so many students only appreciate their teachers long after they’ve left school.  As I enter my 26^th year of teaching and finish my 23^rd year at DeWitt Clinton I’ve come to realize that there are many changes that still need to happen but I'm confident that we have set into place some healthy patterns and relationships that will continue. DeWitt Clinton will endure and I’m satisfied to continue working for its future.  

Perhaps the single most dramatic change this year has been the roll out of our school’s small learning communities.  Our Principal, “Santi,” proposed this model of reorganization in order to increase personalization – the idea that each student has at least one teacher with whom they can have a personal and immediate connection.  Each Clinton teacher has a small learning community.  I aligned myself with the STE²M SLC to focus my interests in agriculture and sustainability. STEM ordinarily refers to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math but because we also focus on the Environment we take our E to the second power. In this my last year of teaching and for the first time at DeWitt Clinton, I’m teaching Sustainability to three classes of 9^th graders.  

I'm thinking that we should try to create a detailed map somehow of the work we’ve begun in Sustainability to help guide the team that takes over next year.  I’m hoping that what follows will be at least the start of describing the practices we have initiated to bring meaningful and sustainable change to our school. I finish with an invitation to join our conversation about the future of The Clinton Garden and sustainability at DeWitt Clinton High School.

Partnership with the Bronx River Alliance to conduct plantings and invasive removal along the Bronx River

 “Tremendously fun” says Gwen. “It was a long day but didn’t feel like it” chimes in Jada.  “The best experience ever” according to Amanda.  These were some of the reactions to our trip on November 13, when students from my Sustainability classes and members of the Environmental Affairs Club planted over 100 trees and shrubs and removed numerous invasive species including a monster porcelain berry vine, thus liberating a tree.  Aliyah was “amazed at how free the tree looked.”  “That tree could have died, but we saved it.” said Amanda T.

Sustainability Students saving trees from invasive species

 “The river looked so realistic and just had that ideal look of what a river in the environment should look like,” said one student. Students were equally driven by a profound sense of service: “it felt nice making a difference.  Helping the environment is very good and we also set a path so other schools can come and do the same thing” said Ameera.

Clarissa Recarmier of The Environmental Affairs Club (EAC).

Mike Zamm, co-advisor of the Environmental Affairs Club and Environmental Education Director from Grow NYC, initiated our collaboration with Bronx River Alliance.  We are so fortunate to be mentored by this amazing organization of citizen environmentalists who are unified in their devotion and dedication to the restoration of the Bronx River, one of our borough's natural treasures.   Our next collaboration will take place on May 21.  When sustainability students and EAC members return to the Bronx River, I predict that for many it will be like returning to a beloved place. 

Sustainability Expo Expands to Earth Day Expo

My 9^th grade Sustainability classes are centered on project-based learning and working together to make meaningful change in our building.  This is not an ordinary class where students might learn only remote or abstract facts or perspectives on the world.  It is also much different than most classes because rather than studying from textbooks, we study our school and so DeWitt Clinton becomes our textbook. In this class we do things that can make a difference in our school and that could benefit our entire community and yes in some ways our planet. 

Sustainability student Ameera Hassan gathering data from this fall's Classroom Recycling Audit.

I use the term “action projects” to denote the active, hands-on nature of our learning. “Classroom Recycling” for instance involves small groups of students surveying classrooms for paper recycling bins, reporting on the status of the bins and placing, replacing or repairing bins.  “Pre-cycling,” involves groups of students raising awareness about waste before it happens and helping educate peers to avoid wasting.  After studying the films Trashed and Tapped it became evident that plastic has become toxic in the environment, especially our oceans.  Unless it is recycled, it contributes to a huge source of pollution for our environment.  And why do people buy water in plastic bottles when it is widely available and free from the tap?  In many instances, bottled water is sourced from municipal tapped water, bottled and sold back to us.   Our “Pre-cycling” groups from each sustainability class were able to distribute nearly 500 bpa-free plastic reusable water bottles to students.  In order to receive a free bottle, students had to sign a commitment to keep using it.  (We acquired these bottles as second place winners of last year’s Grow NYC’s Big Lift Contest).  This semester, some students will track down to see how many of these water bottles are still being used. 

I’d like to illustrate how real change has resulted from our action projects.  Latisha and Savannah from period 8 who call themselves “Save Our Mother” collected signatures on a petition to Principal Taveras to change our school’s security policy that prevents students from bringing in full reusable water bottles.  If they've brought water from home it has to be spilled before students are allowed to enter. Though Mr. Taveras was reluctant to change the policy, a compromise was reached and we will be installing a new filtered water bottle filling station in the school cafeteria this spring (using our Golden Apple Award funds).  Students will be able to refill their reusable water bottles with filtered water from a water bottle filling station in the school cafeteria.

This photograph shows plastic found in the stomach from the carcass of a Laysan Albatross fledgling. Collected and arranged by Dr Cynthia Vanderlip, Division of Forestry and Wildlife, Hawaii. Photograph: Rebecca Hosking/Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (from The Guardian),

Other action projects involved compost education (educating fellow students about composting food waste and collecting coffee grounds from offices throughout the school and vegetable scraps from the cafeteria kitchen), up-cycling (educating fellow students about the possibilities of using waste as a resource for the creation of new products), cafeteria recycling (educating fellow students on how to separate and recycle items on their lunch trays) and future building (building a model of our school and reimagining it as eco-designed and “green”).

Sustainability students Brianna and Amanda demonstrate a worm bin used for composting food scraps.

 

The First Ever Sustainability Expo offered fifteen exhibits; there will be more for this spring's Earth Day Expo.

To celebrate and recognize our first steps towards Sustainability we hosted our “first ever” Sustainability Expo on January 22 in the school library. With over 400 students attending and hundreds receiving free BPA-free water bottles and Clinton Green buttons for completing a challenging scavenger hunt, the expo was a great success!  And what do we do with success?  We Expand it!  On Earth Day, April 22, our STE²M SLC will be hosting our First Ever Earth Day Expo featuring more action projects, more STE²M classes and more change!

Cafeteria Recycling Educators kick off campaign to dramatically improve our separation and recycling of plastics (and metals and glass) from our school’s cafeteria

When we started what was to become The Clinton Garden, we were determined, from the outset, to see it through.  We knew some doubters existed, we could tell that some thought this would just be another one term project.  There were also self-doubts to overcome.  But quietly and patiently we began building and adding and learning and, within a relatively short time, we had a garden we could be proud of. We were then being congratulated for achieving the impossible: starting a beautiful, productive working garden on the campus of DeWitt Clinton High School. This year’s sustainability initiative is to focus on establishing a recycling program in the school cafeteria; we must remember to draw strength from our experience and determination to build the garden.  The student cafeteria presents the biggest challenge that our green team has ever faced.  I’ve been told again and again that this won’t work, we won’t be able to change the habits of these kids.  Yet, we know the situation is unacceptable, we see the bad habits practiced there, we know already that students are more likely to drop their cafeteria trays on the floor as bring them to one of the blue bins to separate and recycle.  It’s hard to change the culture of the cafeteria.  Whatever mess is made, it gets cleaned up.  The problem is that the mess is excessive and unhealthy and worst of all, from my perspective, wasteful. 

Prior to our present campaign, what was left on the cafeteria table...

was soon to be found in the trash...

where recyclables like cans and cartons mingled freely with food waste!

What students have been conditioned to is “not recycling” because for so long there has been “no recycling.” For years, there were only single trash bins for everything.  Recycling awareness has been growing throughout our city and our nation and more citizens are recognizing the moral obligation of recycling as an integral part of living sustainably.  And that is why sustainability must not just be learned but be practiced.

Resistance might stem from the ‘Oh, now you you’re deciding to have us recycle,’ to a real lack of awareness of the value of recycling especially because there is ‘nothing in it for me.’ A regression occurred in environmental terms and we became a “single trash bin culture.”  Everything, whether it is recyclable or not, goes into the same bin.  It all becomes Trash!

From left, some of our Cafeteria Recycling Educators, Bryan, Jestina, Dionny, Bryana and Eduardo who helped collect over 200 lbs of recyclables from the DeWitt Clinton High School cafeteria thus far.

But now students are slowly becoming aware that they’ve been given a choice.  Students could be part of the solution to a problem.  We finally have recycle bins set up in the cafeteria and we are recycling properly, that means taking it to the curb so that the Department of Sanitation could pick it up.  We have cafeteria-recycling educators. With the help of Laura Piraino of Grow NYC’s Recycling Champions and Toni Campopiano and her staff from Good Shepherd, we trained twelve cafeteria educators in the basics of cafeteria recycling as well as the interpersonal skills necessary to be an effective cafeteria educator.  To be effective in this business so far means outreach and patience.  The job of the cafeteria-recycling educator is to encourage recycling, answer questions about separation, and manage the recycle bins. It's not to be a garbage collector or a trash picker!

From left, Some of our Environmental Affairs Club members, Madeline, Apple, Eslainy, TJ, Clarissa, and Shahana brought it out to the curb.

Our students made history this past week when we hauled 177 pounds of recycling to the curb to be collected for the first time in recent memory.  Of that total, 59 pounds were contributed from the cafeteria kitchen thanks to the efforts of Paul Griffith, who is championing the initiative to recycle plastic, metal and glass from the kitchen.    

 

Mr. Griffith and Dean McGuire

To be honest, we could do a lot more recycling in the school cafeteria.  But we need more support from student, staff and faculty.  We are making the first moves but we are currently just recycling a small percentage of what we can be recycling.  I feel that it is important to get a recycling program up and running at our school.  As a united team of recycling educators, Environmental Affairs Club members, faculty and staff we could be finally addressing what was for so long the absence of recycling in our cafeteria. It's difficult for some students to transition from a “single trash bin culture” to a recycling culture, but for most students it's just common sense.  But this should only be the start. Our collection has already grown 5 lbs a day and is currently reaching 18 lbs.  We are becoming more mindful of the environment and sustainable.  But still, we need everybody’s help.

Composting

We've been keeping these new tumblers busy all winter! 

The following two slides are excerpted from"The Poetics of Compost," a presentation I gave on November 23, 2014 at the National Conference of Teachers of English, National Convention in Washington, D.C. 

Garden Expansion

 What has to be imagined is what can and has to be designed.
                                         Tony Fry, from Becoming Human by Design   
                                                     

This past Fall we were presented this beautiful sign from our partners Bronx Green Up of the New York Botanical Garden

It is exciting to think about the future of a space that I have come to love and admire.  I feel like a parent of a child about to be an adolescent.   I understand, the garden needs to grow!  It needs to accommodate more people, it needs to be a place where people can gather and learn.  It needs to invite the community into a shared undertaking, to grow, to continue, to prosper, to be just. A garden is an offering to the community of the possibility of being sustainable.  It is a hope given to all that our own land can still feed and save us.  It is a powerful statement! It is a decision to grow, garden, compost, yes, and feed a community. 

The Clinton Garden, late Winter 2015.

The Clinton Garden is larger than all of us. And we need to pull together as a community to see that it continues to grow, that this still is the very start and not the finish of an idea.  I have proposed the creation of the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center (see recent posts).  This would, at its most basic, consist of a welcome table accommodating at least 35 people in a space that provides shade and shelter.  The table itself would be a memorial and dedicated to alumnus James Baldwin.  The center would be situated within an expanded Clinton Garden environment.

First time back to the garden on March 19, EAC members from left Zoraida, TJ and Yelissa.

Thus far, we have successfully completed an IOBY campaign and raised $3,000 for the planning of the James Baldwin Center.  I have enlisted architect Linda Pollak to help us construct a vision of what the garden might look like in the future.  On June 4, 2015, members of our school community along with community partners and organizations that have supported the Clinton Garden since its beginning will gather to discuss the future of The Clinton Garden.  If you would like to be a part of this conversation, please email me at raypultinas@gmail.com

And please share your comments and suggestions. 
 

Our new logo, designed by Clinton student Carlos Ramos.  Let us know what you think.

 

Transformation: Reaching New Heights

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How will DeWitt Clinton look in 50 years?  What kind of school will greet our descendants and those of our students, past and present? How will our school meet the needs of those striving to succeed in a changing world?  How will it model sustainability? Will it be a green model school oasis in the city?  Will it be a place where students prepare for the changes that climate is bringing?

Our school facility must lean towards the future and what better way than through eco-design that is sustainable, community friendly, and that promotes health and well-being.  We need to continue to design our building for the future and begin to represent the change we see happening all around us.  I propose that we start with the heart of our sustainability efforts, The Clinton Garden.

The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center will be in proximity to The Clinton Garden to serve as a multi-purpose community/school gathering space dedicated to Baldwin’s memory and his commitment to social justice.  Today, we recognize that social justice includes environmental justice.  Just as James Baldwin shaped his own learning through self-determination, The Baldwin Center will further the idea that learning is immersive, connected to the community, and transformative.

Architect Linda Pollak, Sarah Wolf (Active Design Manager at the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene), and I toured The Clinton Garden and the grounds of our school on a bright and beautiful October day.  We even went to the roof to look down on our school garden, share ideas for the Baldwin Center, observe, imagine and dream. 

Linda Pollak has designed outdoor classrooms on Staten Island and Queens that beautifully integrate the existing landscape and make use of eco-design principles.  Sarah Wolf introduced me to the mission of the Center for Active Design: “to reduce the risk of obesity and chronic diseases by promoting physical activity and healthy food access through the design of buildings, streets, and neighborhoods.”  From the spot where our local hawks and falcons perch we could start to see future possibilities, a “new face” for our building as seen from Paul Avenue.

Our next steps are clear: a timeline/schedule for the project and a plan or framework that will allow the shape of the project to emerge.  We can then enlist our shareholders to create a space for input by students, teachers, parents and our community partners. I’ve never wanted to impose an idea or a space as much as contribute towards a shared vision. 

So, where do we go from here?  Help us close out this IOBY campaign.  We’ve come a long way and with less than $700 more, we can start the new year ready to make our next move with design plans in hand.

To give, even a little, please follow the link below:

https://ioby.org/project/james-baldwin-memorial-outdoor-learning-center-clinton-garden

Thank You, Happy Holiday Season and Happy New Year!

The Welcome Table

The Welcome Table

first thing to meet the eye and

greet the guests of the garden.

Set to say ‘Welcome,’

and as if to say,

‘This first we MUST agree upon:

to sit, to share, to talk.

For to not agree  

would turn this table over

becomes a shield

the table turned against:

hatred, intolerance,

waste, and greed.

The Welcome Table

a place of gathering of all people

to share food, poetry, music, laughter, ideas, lessons

a place apart and in connection to what goes on inside our school

to remind us of what we learn outside of the classroom

a sanctuary here on the campus of our busy public high school

a safe place for difference and sameness

The garden will remind us of the earth outside and in us –

The Welcome Table

James Baldwin’s story, for one, could be told here

since he went here- amidst the throng - across

the lengths of these halls, the same stairs, and library –

Jimmy must have been in Mr. Meeropol’s class

at least heard Abel banging on a piano

somewhere hammering away at librettos 

or the crystal moment that bore Strange Fruit

on some piano in the building somewhere

like summertime –

From the depths of Harlem he rode a breadth of New York City,   

to the Castle on the Parkway, Norwood of the Bronx

And The Welcome Table, open and large, was in his life, was his life,

his last play, last easing of tension into brotherhood and love.

This poem has been generating over the last few weeks, but its history in me runs much deeper.  One of the highlights of my over twenty years of teaching English at DeWitt Clinton High School was having the opportunity to teach a James Baldwin elective for several semesters from 2002 to 2004.  The experience culminated in my class discussingThe Fire Next Time while being filmed and subsequently televised onC-SPAN. I was also able to attend the 80 year celebration of Baldwin’s birth in conjunction with the publication of Sol’s Stein’s Native Sons: A Friendship That Created One of the Greatest Works of the Twentieth Century, an event held at the DeWitt Clinton High School library with esteemed guests including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Sol Stein and biographer David Leeming (who happened to be my college professor at UCONN).  The reference to songwriter and lyricist Abel Meeropol, who wrote the song “Strange Fruit” that Billie Holiday made famous, stems from years of teaching the song in my Advanced Literary Criticism course at Clinton.  Three of these class sessions were featured in Joel Katz’ 2004 film, Strange Fruit.  I have long been captivated by the likelihood that James Baldwin and Abel Meeropol were acquainted at least to the extent that Abel Meeropol taught English at Clinton during the years that James Baldwin attended.  I like to think of myself as a collector of such convergences. 

I’m advocating The Welcome Table as a key design feature of the James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor LearningCenter, a site that I propose being constructed in proximity to The Clinton Garden and that will serve as a multi-purpose community/school gathering space dedicated to Baldwin’s memory and the idea that learning, especially about the environment, sustainability, gardening and food, needs to also take place outside of the classroom.  For more information, or to donate, please visit our IOBY page.

Futuring The Clinton Garden

Humble beginnings, early Spring 2010

Summer bounty 2014

We're dreamers with big ideas and big plans and from what we've experienced so far, we know that dreams do become real.  In just five years, we've succeeded in transforming our campus and now we're dreaming from a whole different space.  Where there was drab there is color.  Where there was tawny grass there are bright red cherry tomatoes to pluck and eat and share. Where there was little to stimulate the senses there is the humming and fragrance of a radiant garden and wildlife habitat. 

Our efforts at beautifying the DeWitt Clinton High School campus have not gone unnoticed. On June 27, we were awarded the 2014 Golden Apple by the New York City Department of Sanitation Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling.  Not only were we Bronx Borough Winners in the TrashMasters, Team Up to Clean Up! Category, we were City Wide Winners. Is ours the most lush, beautiful and productive school garden in all of New York City? So I've been told.

The DeWitt Clinton High School Community receiving the Golden Apple and Golden Shovel Awards, June 2014

We've always grown a wide variety of vegetables and have learned that certain crops do consistently well.  Kale, tomato, varieties of lettuce, pepper, basil, parsley, sunflowers, corn and beans have flourished in our garden but we have not stopped experimenting with new varieties.  This year our stands of turnip and okra look outstanding.   We introduced grapes last year and this year we have started gooseberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry and more grapes.  Our native plant garden attracts bees and butterflies and our reluctance to mow has enabled the spread of Swamp Milkweed, Blue Mist Flower, Black-eyed Susans and Mint in random spots throughout the garden. Gym classes leaving the building for the field walk past festive Zinnia, Marigold, Balsam and Calliopsis.

This summer our garden is even more beautiful than ever primarily because we have initiated The Clinton Garden Summer Internship Program.  Whereas in previous summers, student volunteers from the Environmental Affairs Club would ascend on the garden periodically in response to my requests on our Facebook page, this summer we have a dedicated team of five interns who are each spending a minimum of 30 hours caring for, watering and maintaining the garden.  With the success of this summer's program we are sure to make this a lasting offering to our students in the years to come. We are especially proud to provide our interns with a modest stipend thanks to funding provided by a Grow to Learn Grant we received back in January.

From left, Summer Interns Maribel Vitagliani, Clarissa Recamier and Stephanie M. Reyes working the worm bin.

During the hottest afternoons, a make-shift sprinkler does the trick...

...and no one is spared!

And where would our garden be without compost?  The growth of our completely organic garden has depended upon our ability to expand our ability to create the rich, dense, moisture retaining and nutritious (AND FREE !!!!) soil amendment known as compost. Along with the Golden Apple, we were awarded The Golden Shovel in June for our exemplary composting system already in place. But even before this award, we received a Compost Grant from Citizens Committee for New York City. Starting in the fall, we will expand our operation by purchasing additional EnviroCycle Tumblers to finally begin composting cafeteria vegetable kitchen scraps and coffee grounds from at least six offices.

Good compost means good volunteers, like this butternut squash! 

We presently boast seventeen beds (we started with five) perhaps finally reaching capacity for the narrow 96' x 21' space we presently occupy.  But our campus is built upon a 23 acre piece of land and while a substantial amount of this land is occupied by our school building, track and playing fields we have the space to expand.  Our most ambitious future plans for the garden involve the construction of The James Baldwin Memorial Outdoor Learning Center. This multipurpose outdoor classroom facility will memorialize the great American writer and civil rights hero who graduated from DeWitt Clinton in 1942 and whose life and career best exemplifies to us the idea that learning and education also take place outside of the classroom.

                        

And so, this fall, we know what we will be striving towards.  We'll continue to develop our plans for the expansion of the garden and the construction of our outdoor learning center, we'll continue to work with our numerous partner organizations, we'll continue to bring programming about food, health, gardening, composting and sustainability into The Clinton Garden and onto our school campus, we'll continue to recruit our own faculty and students to take part in growing the garden and we'll continue to build our dreams from where we presently stand.  

DWC faculty members Amneris Rasuk Garcia and Allison Burke-Soall driving in the final screw in what might be the last raised bed in The Clinton Garden, Spring 2014 - we're out of room in our present space!

DWC faculty member Franklyn Myal has adopted the role of weed-wacker at The Clinton Garden, Spring 2014.

From left, AmeriCorp Vista Service Member Augie, School Gardener Ray Pultinas, Clinton Garden Summer Interns Andrew Madero, Maribel Vitigliani, Clarissa Recamier, Stephanie M. Reyes and Americorp Vista Service Member Ellen Winston join forces to construct supports for black raspberry, Summer 2014.  

Golden Apple (Borough and City Wide Winners) and Golden Shovel Awards, Spring 2014