Hello, Friend of Dream Flags! We hope this letter finds you well. We hope you’ll join us on Saturday, April 19 from 12-1:30 at the Kimmel Center for our special fifth anniversary celebration of The Dream Flag Project!
If you’re a former Kimmel Event Staff volunteer (or if you want to give it a try), and want to help out this year, please be in touch with Jane Laties by April 1.
It’s thanks to people like you that we’ve been able to share in the dreams of so many young people in so many places. Five years ago, we decided to take our sixth grade English activity at The Agnes Irwin School and ask others to join us. Who knew that five years later more than 25,000 Dream Flags would have been made by students in more than 25 states with urban, suburban, rural, public, and private schools all joining in? Here’s a link to a map showing most of the sites where Dream Flags are being made this year: 2008 Dream Flags Sites Map.
Why do they do it? Here’s what one teacher wrote back when we asked what she hoped for her students this year:
I would say that my hope is that
the students will recognize the symbolism; these are not just poems on fabric
strung together but hopes and dreams linked by our humanity. I also
like having my students push themselves to thinking outside of their little
world and thinking more "globally" - their dreams, in fifth grade, at
least, would hopefully reflect a more mature view about hopes and include
rectifying some of the things that impact our greater humanity and not just the
microcosm here.
We know we’re “preaching to the choir” telling you things like this, though. So here’s some news on what’s up in our 2008 Dream Flag Project.
Schools Joining In
International Reach
Dream Flags Teacher Workshop
Pass The Banner Project
Special Kimmel Center Events
Connection to Langston Hughes
Schools
Joining In
To date, more than 245 teachers are registered, along with their students,
for this year’s project. This represents about 65 schools and more than 5,000
students making Dream Flags. We’re
welcoming back many “old friends” from places such as White Mountain, Alaska;
Pensacola, Florida; and Coos Bay, Oregon. New schools have joined us from places
such as Hallsville, Montana; Glasgow, Kentucky, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Here in the Delaware Valley, more than 25 schools have registered.
One great boost in our outreach has come from The National Writing Project, which took note of our project thanks to Susan Lytle at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.
International
Reach
This year, Project Learn, one of our long-time
supporters in the Germantown area of Philadelphia, sent a “Dream Flags
Ambassador” to their partner school, run by Helping Honduras
Kids, in La Ceiba, Honduras. Eve Horowitz, a parent at Project Learn, took
Dream Flag kits made by Project Learn students to the school in Honduras and
helped students there create Dream Flags which will, we hope, make their way to
our April 19th celebration.
The Dream Flag Project was also asked to provide materials to for distribution at a conference this month in Singapore. The American Creativity Association’s conference will be attended by representatives from more than 45 Asian countries where English is one of the languages, so we may be getting some dreams from Asia in the coming year!
Dream
Flags Teacher Workshop
As part of our fifth anniversary activities, we
held our teacher in-service, hosted by Lower Merion School District. The
workshop included presentations from Dream Flag teachers and hands-on
experience making the Dream Flags. It was held on a Saturday morning in
January, and teachers from twelve schools throughout the region gathered at
Belmont Hills Elementary, the host school. Attendees represented both “old
timers,” such as John Wister where every student has made Dream Flags for
the past five years, and “first-time Dreamers” such as First
Philadelphia Charter School for Literacy, a brand new school where they
plan to have all 700 students make Dream Flags this year. The morning was full
of great new ideas, laughter, and a wonderful sense of shared purpose. Here’s a
link to a video where some teachers introduced themselves and some spoke about
their experience with, or hopes for, the project. Teachers
Talk Video.
(Sorry, this is a PC format video. There’s also a Mac Reader for it.)
Pass-The-Banner
Project
Another special project this year is one that allows small groups of
participant schools to deepen their connection across the miles. In our
Pass-The-Banner Project, groups of schools create a collaborative flag line
that, when complete, reads “D-R-E-A-M F-L-A-G-S.” Each school adds a few
letters to the line, then mails it to the next school
(along with any fun school things they want to put in the envelope.) When the
line is complete, it gets mailed to each school again for display. With luck,
all four lines being mailed around the country right now will end up at the
Kimmel Center on April 19!
Special
Kimmel Center Events
If you can, come early to the Kimmel Center
celebration on April 19th! The regular program runs from 12 to 1:30, but
starting at 10:45, some schools will have display tables showing poetry,
pictures, and other materials from their schools; we’ll also have an open-mike
for student poets to informally read their Dream Flag poems. Schools from around the country will be
featured on display boards, and we may even have a special guest for the
program starting at 12. (Keep your fingers crossed.)
Connection to Langston Hughes
As in past years, Dream Flags will be exhibited around the country by
individual schools and in Philadelphia region as well. A special group of
flags, however, will be going to Gary, Indiana. There they will be exhibited at
a newly-opened Langston Hughes Museum run by Marjol Collet, a relative of Langston Hughes! She
learned of our project through a participant school in Gary and contacted us so
that we could collaborate. Students were thrilled to learn that some flags
would be going to an actual relative of Mr. Hughes.
Well that’s the news to date. We certainly hope you can make it to the Kimmel on April 19th, but even more, we hope you’ll continue to support the work of The Dream Flag Project. Please feel free to be in touch with us about any ideas or resources you think we should pursue, and with any comments or thoughts you have about what, for us, is a continually inspiring group effort.
Yours dreaming,
--Jeff & Sandy
_________________________
Jeff Harlan and Sandy Crow
The Dream Flag Project
www.dreamflags.org
dreamflags@agnesirwin.org
610-525-8400 x1703
The Agnes Irwin School
Ithan Ave. and Conestoga Rd.
Rosemont, PA 19010 US
www.agnesirwin.org