the walking project: workshops

welcome

We're using this web log as a centralized repository of information, curriculum materials, related readings and links to support school and community workshops for the February-April Walking Project residency.

It's also a place where teachers and students from different schools and classes can make comments and discuss the workshops and Walking Project events.  Because we're working with such a broad range of groups, there's an opportunity to interact online with people you might not normally run into.  We're hoping this diversity of age, geography and experience can enhance the impact of the workshops.

We'll be creating a new entry for each workshop that includes an itinerary for the session, with the title of your school or class.  This is a great place to comment and ask questions specific to your group's workshops. Each entry will be grade-appropriate, so you can focus on the discussion connected to a specific post. 

Please note: All comments on the site are moderated for appropriateness, so nothing on this blog will be unsuitable for the elementary age students who might be browsing.

workshop dates

February
14: University of Michigan: Urban Planning 697-001 Gender Race + the Built Environment (12:30-2pm)
16: Northside Elementary, Ann Arbor (10:10-11:15am - Walking & Mapping)
16: University of Michigan: Urban Planning 697-001 Gender Race + the Built Environment (12:30-2pm)
23: Northside Elementary, Ann Arbor (9:30-10:30am - Culture Share)

March
2: Bagley Elementary, Detroit (8am-2pm - Culture Share)
7:  New Middle School, Detroit (9-10:30am - Culture Share)   
7:  Project Adapt, Detroit (6:30-8pm - Culture Share)
9:  Vandenberg Elementary, Redford (1-3pm - Culture Share)
9:  University of MI: School of Art & Design Perception Classes (1:30-4:30pm - Walking & Mapping)
11: Fellowship Chapel, Detroit (1-4pm - Culture Share)
16: MLK High School, Detroit (8am-2pm - Culture Share)

April
5: Joy Middle School (9-11am (Culture Share)

20-21, 24: University of MI: Social Work 69 001 Social Work Practice with Community and Social Systems (10am-5pm Walking & Mapping/Navigating & Storytelling)

workshop descriptions - overview documents

school workshops - an overview:  download the pdf

walking & other workshops: download the pdf

social work 69 001 overview: download the pdf

 

maps

 

click on map to enlarge

context - going deeper into the project

What started off as a bike ride along paths through abandoned housing lots in Detroit has led to a series of walks along desire lines in neighborhoods in the city and KwaZulu-Natal, generating conversations, photographs, stories and connections between the two places.

Desire lines are those well-worn ribbons of dirt that you see cutting across a patch of grass, often with nearby sidewalks — particularly those that offer a less direct route — ignored. In winter, desire lines appear spontaneously as tramped down paths in the snow. I love that these paths are never perfectly straight. Instead, like a river, they meander this way and that, as if to prove that desire itself isn't linear and (literally, in this case) straightforward. (wordspy.com)

Much like the desire lines we’re investigating, our ideas about the practice and possibilities of walking and performance have evolved with this project. We have been asking ourselves how this work operates both off and on stage, how a growing body of research can be applied across disciplines, and how it crosses, or maybe even erases, boundaries between art and everyday life, between people from different places, and across hierarchies of “experts” and “community participants”.

northside school: february 16 (10:15-11:15am) - walking & mapping our playground

who: Lisa Teshima's second grade class (17) and Amy Warner's fourth grade class (22), working together

sequence:
1) pre-workshop preparation (see below)
2) walking & mapping with Erika & Hilary
3) continuing class work to create a wall-size playground map and video of the walk

Playground Walk – Preparation
Go out as normal into the playground for recess and as you go remember what path you take, whether you turn right or left, or go straight on.  Every now and then during recess stop and remember where you have been, whether you have been running, walking or any particular activity you have been doing.

Do this for two days in a row.

On the third day take exactly the same route but this time only walk.  Take photographs, draw or write about anything that takes your attention along the way.  [this can be done in lesson time so that students don’t miss out on recess!]

Things to think about: why do you turn left or right?  What do you like about the path you take?  What don’t you like, if anything? Why? Sometimes you walk, sometimes you run – what makes you do this?  Can you draw the map of your route?

Workshop - 1 hour - walking exercises, GPS introduction, photos and video.

Things to do after we leave, as you build your collaborative map....

urban planning 697-001: gender, race + the built environment

assignment for thursday:

1. after sleeping on today's work, post comments/reflections/questions on the exercises at the bottom of this blog post
2. as a group, prepare a familiar walk (preferably with desire lines) on north campus for class.  let us know where the starting point will be (by 9am thursday) and we'll all meet there at 12:40pm.  the walk should be about 15 minutes from point A to point B.
3. think of a walk you do frequently – from home to your first class, from class to lunch, from class to the gym or work.  for the rest of the week, apply the mental waypoints we discussed to these daily walks.

continue reading for recap and references...

culture share preparation

what:
Visiting artists Omri Nene, Jabulisile Shange, Gugu Hadebe and Ndu Hadebe will share Zulu language and traditional music, dance and cultural stories through performance and hands-on participation and ask students to share their own traditions. This workshop is rooted in the notion that learning through cultural exchange is best facilitated through personal reflection and an opportunity to teach, combined with listening, watching and learning from people from other cultures.

preparation ideas: (click on links for more info)
- locate South Africa and KwaZulu-Natal on a map
- ask students what they know about South Africa and
    what questions they'd like to ask of their visitors
- learn to welcome their guests by saying hello in Zulu:
    sawubona pronounced "sow-bona" (to one person)
    sanibonani (to more than one person)   
    (older students can research words they want to say in Zulu)

- prepare to share 10-15 minutes of something from their own culture with Omri, Jabu, Gugu and Ndu; possibilities include: favorite facts about or places in their neighborhood, common stories, games, songs, or dances (be creative! can be done either in groups or individually)

culture share discussion

this section is for any student or teacher who's participated in the culture share workshops to ask questions, make comments, share reflections and responses to the experience.  the walking project cast members will respond, as well.  it's a bit of an experiment. 

just add your comment below this web log post.  if you're unable to add a comment here because of your internet connection or for any other reason, please email it to cultureshare@walksquawk.org and we'll add it for you.

perception classes

movement, walking and our perception of the everyday

post your reflections, questions and wanderings in the comments to this blog post; you can also add a link to any web page or file you've uploaded relating to the workshop

check out photos from the workshop here

u of m social work msw students/youthville staff (april 20, 21, 24)

Space is linked to identity.  Artist Mike Pearson writes about the idea of a square mile around our home: “until the age of eight we know one square mile in a detail that we will never know anywhere else again in our lives.” And it is in this square mile that creation of our identity begins.  We are more likely to remember the details of the where of an event than the when. Pearson describes a walk he made with family, friends and neighbors in the village where he grew up: “What such work elicits...is other stories, and stories about stories.  It catalyses personal reflection – causes a reaction – and the desire on the part of the listener to reveal her own experiences, and to re-visit communal ones.  It works with memory: raking up enduring ones, stirring half-suppressed ones".  And “it can create – if only for a short time - ...a coming together, across various generations.”

So returning to a location, taking a walk there, may be a way to re-visit the past in the present.  A way to join things together and, consequently, make sense of fractured moments.  By walking we reclaim ourselves as well as the space we inhabit.  A walk can be the catalyst for an event, a ‘performance’ of story-telling, song, exchange and celebration. The walk binds us together, provides a structure where contradictions and differences, as well as commonalities, can surface.

social work/youthville workshop - discussion & notes

use the comment option on this post for your reflections, questions and wanderings from the first two days of the workshop; you can also add a link to any web page or file you've uploaded relating to the workshop

mental waypoints:

web links from 4/24 session

projects:

10x10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris

elastic space › Time that land forgot

w a y f r o m h o m e

CommunityWalk

Bio Mapping - Christian Nold

GPS Drawing Over Land

HousingMaps

Jon Udell: A Google Maps walking tour of Keene, NH

MapHub: Collaborative Mapping

what is fallen fruit?

WHERE YOU ARE

MapTribe project

soundcities

MILK

Songlines Utrecht

thinking:

Mike Liebhold Lecture: The Geospatial Web and Mobile Service Ecologies

Mobile Digital Commons Network : Locative

Proboscis | Social Tapestries

Salon.com Technology | Urban renewal, the wireless way

This American Life | Mapping

NetSquared | A project of TechSoup

tools:

about geocinema

Geocoding Tutorial - Creating Google Mashups

Google Draw

Google Maps Mania