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News
Notes #6
-!The Final Note!
updates for participant schools
4/27/05
 In
this News Notes:
The Final Note (but not the last note . . . )
How often do students from the city and
the suburbs, from public schools, charter schools,
and independent schools--from a ninth
grade in Reading, Pennsylvania; and a fifth grade in
Berlin, New Jersey; and a second grade in
Philadelphia--get together and share dreams and the
art they have created and the poems they have
crafted? But that is what happened this
year because of our collective efforts in The Dream
Flag Project. We hope it's the beginning of an even
stronger connection in years to come.
Poems,
poets, and flags were connected in many ways
this year, but between 12 and 1:30, under the arched glass ceiling
of the Kimmel Center on April 16th, we
physically connected the Dream Flags of more than
1,400 students and heard from fifty-one student
poets--some from out-of-state. So many people worked
together to make this happen, especially the
teachers and students who prepared for weeks and
came in on this sunlit Saturday in spring. It was,
in fact, a dream
come true. Read all about the details of this
wonderful day below in A Dream Come
True!
(You can also see some pictures and video clips
on the Share
page.)
Our dreams
flew together so beautifully on April 16th but they
have not stopped flying. Last week, we organized,
labeled, and packed them off for display in five
locations around the Delaware Valley. Read about
this and what will happen to the flags when they
come back in Dream Flags "On
Parade."
We also want
everyone to know that, though the big flurry of activity
to share our Dream Flags has subsided, the web site for The Dream
Flag Project will keep quietly "humming" all year
long. You can read about what this means in
Keeping the Dreams On-Line.
Another
continuation of the project comes from the Dream
Flag Project T-shirts worn by our Dream Team staff
at the Kimmel Center event. A number of teachers and
students asked us if they could get one. So we've
decided to take orders for Dream Flag T-shirts!
Check out the details of how this will work in
Dreamer T! below.
As
you may have gathered, we'll be at this again next
year--together. But to do this again together, we
need your ideas and feedback. We're asking you
to take a little time to email us about what
worked and what could be better. We'd
appreciate it if you would take the time to check out
the questions below under We
Need Your Voice and
email us back about them.
Finally, we
can't thank each of you enough for making the
project happen this year. While we have provided a
kind of "box" for all of us to work in, it is the
work within that "box" that makes the project so
wonderfully creative, individual, and at the same
time, unified. We hope you'll join us again next
year and that you'll keep dreaming in the mean time.
One of the things
we like so much about The Dream Flag Project is that
while each flag is a uniquely beautiful dream that
belongs to the student who made it, together, they
create something that belongs to us all. That
connecting of students to their dreams and their
dreams to the world is something we'd like to keep
on doing until those dreams fly right off their
flags and become reality.
Thank you.
--Jeff
Harlan and Sandy Crow
April 16th: A Dream Come True!
The day
started with the 10:00 arrival of the Dream Team, a
group of fourteen teacher volunteers who wore the
Dream Flag Celebration Staff T-shirts and helped
with everything from setting up the stage
decorations, to welcoming schools, to laying out the
more than 1,400 flags around the balconies, to
giving directions to the bathrooms, to shepherding
poets onto and off of the stage, to packing up the
flags when the day was over. They made the event a
success for everyone, and we are extremely indebted
to them.
At 10:15, Wister
School, from
the Germantown area of Philadelphia arrived with 500 Dream
Flags to lay out and a busload of students who had
come to help display their flags and support their
school's poetry readers. Then one school after another
arrived, 19 altogether. Teachers, students, family
members, volunteers were abuzz all over the Kimmel
Center on three different levels. Flags were
carefully laid out on the carpet in long lines,
starting on the stage, ascending up stairs to the
first balcony level, following the balcony rail all
the way around the Kimmel Center atrium area once
(about 500 feet), then up another stair to the
second balcony, doubling back on that rail and
covering it about one and a half times. It was a
long, long line of Dream Flags, each a completely
unique expression of dreams and hopes--together, a
powerful expression of unity and purpose.
Back at the
registration desk, schools were paired with their
assigned Dream Team staff members and received their
school packets for how things work. Everyone
got Dream Flag buttons and a program. Over the past
month, our sixth grade students made more than 700
buttons, (It was a regular button factory!) but the button baskets on the
registration table were soon completely empty.
Amidst the
hubbub of Dream Flag arrangements, the musicians
arrived and set up the sound system with the staff
of the Kimmel Center. Andrea Clearfield (piano), Manfren Fischbeck (synthesizer), and Ron Kravitz
(percussion) started to fill the air with their
ethereal textures of sound and rhythm. By 11:40, all
of the flags were laid out. All along the length of
the Dream Flag lines, people of all ages stood still, walked slowly,
or bent down to take in the lines and images one at a time.
Soon, all of the seats filled up. People sat on the
stairways and stood to hear and see. And we were
ready to begin.
The program
started with a recitation of our poem of invitation,
"The Dream Keeper," by Langston Hughes. We
invited the audience to learn
the Dream Flag Song, a
setting of "The Dream Keeper," as a chorus with some
words from student poems improvised as verses.
Moving right
along, we started with our student poets. We
emphasized that each poet was really the
representative of a much larger group, a whole class
of students, who had created dream poems. What we
were hearing was only the "tip of the iceberg."
While students read their lines, Andrea, Manfred and
Ron listened and played. They improvised sounds,
tunes, chords, and rhythms that underscored the
meanings and feelings in the poetry as it was being
read, creating a continuous musical bridge between
the poems, readers, and listeners.
In addition
to the readings by local poets, there were several poems from out-of-staters! These
were poems that were sent in for the reading and
were read by student volunteers. They included poems
from the Lovett School in Atlanta, GA and the Flint
Hill School in Oakton, VA.
Time
sped quickly, but after we heard from the fifty-one
student readers, we were all ready to get up and
move. Students and their teachers got up and
stationed themselves along their Flag Lines,
surrounding the Kimmel Center. With quick-moving
jazz riffs in the background, they were soon
positioned all around the balconies. On cue, each
school was announced, applauded, and then connected
its Flag Line to the one before.
They lifted their Dream Flags high and raised up the
more than 1,400 feet of continuously connected Dream
Flags. The sight of so many students, from
pre-kindergarten to ninth grade, surrounding the
expansive space of the Kimmel Center with connected
Dream Flags, waving them and cheering, is one that
none of us will soon forget.
With the
flags high, we closed the program with an African
percussion piece inspired by Hughes' "Dream Keeper,"
composed and performed by elementary students from
the Montessori Genesis II school in West Philadelphia
under the direction of Robert Kenyatta. All around
the Kimmel Center their rhythms pulsed as they led
the group in a chant of "Dream, . . .Dream, . . .
Dream." They continued to play as we gave our thanks
to many of the individuals and groups who made The
Dream Flag Project possible this year. They
"played us out" as families, teachers, and many others took
time to walk around and take one last look at the
Dream Flags before they were packed up to be taken
away and organized for the exhibitions.
By 2:00, the
Kimmel Center was all but empty. The flags were
gone, and the people were gone. But the wonderful
spirit of the day remains. (And they've invited us
back for next year. . .)
Dream Flags "On Parade"
Every day, literally thousands of people will be
reading and viewing the Dream Flags our students
created for the next two weeks. Here's how it's
happening. . .
At the conclusion of our Dream Flag Celebration
on April 16th, there were bags and bags of Dream
Flags folded and left with the staff at our
registration desk. The Dream Flag lines were
organized and installed last
week, and they will be on display for at least two weeks
at each location. There, our positive poems and art for the
world can be enjoyed and appreciated by many people,
especially people in hospitals who may be in need of
uplifting hopes.
Arrangements
for these exhibitions were managed by Dream Flag
Project volunteer Meg Ryan. Thanks, Meg!! Here's
where the flags can (or could) be found. If you have
the chance, go take a look and let them know we
appreciate their support!
 Citizens
Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies
Broad and Oregon Ave. in South Philadelphia
Flags were installed inside the VIP entrance. They went
in on Monday, the 18th, and were there all week for
a Phillies home stint. Thanks to Joe Giles, Director
of Business Development, for
Citizens Park for helping get children's poetry and
art into the stadium.
The same group of flags will go on display at . . .
Philadelphia City Institute, a branch of
Philadelphia Free Library
Locust St. and 19th St. (on Rittenhouse
Square) in Center City, Philadelphia
Flags from the Phillies exhibit (with the
possible addition of others) will be installed in
the children's section of the library. This is
downstairs after you walk in. (Entrance on Locust
St.) Thanks to children's librarian Karen Fleck for
arranging this. (PCI library also helped students
create Dream Flags in their after school program.)
St.
Christopher's Hospital for Children
Erie Ave. at Front Street in North
Philadelphia
The flags will be on display in the central
lobby area, a wonderfully open atrium that rises up
about five floors through the center of the
building. Thanks to Candy Nice, Director of Child
Life at St. Christopher's, for making this great
space available.
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
34th Street and Civic Center Blvd. in West
Philadelphia
Dream Flags are back at CHOP for a second year.
They're all over the place. . . In the main building
at the top of the atrium steps, on the 3rd floor of
the main building in the central atrium, in Sea
Shore House (the residential area for long-term
patients) on the 2nd floor atrium and on the 4th
floor atrium. Many thanks to Megan Charney and Mike
Majeski who arranged the exhibition
spaces.
Bryn Mawr
Hospital
130 South Bryn Mawr Ave., Bryn Mawr, PA
Dream Flags are being installed in the Warden
Lobby (main lobby area) and in E Wing, outside of
the Maternity Unit. Many thanks to
Jim Paradis, Vice-President of Operations, for
making this possible for everyone.
Sending
the Flags Home
We plan to take all of the flags down during the
week of May 9th. The following week, the week of May
16th, we will mail them back to the lead teacher at
each school. We will send an email to let you know
when exactly to expect them.
And what
should you do with them when the flags come home? . . .
That's up to you of course. Some schools have
displayed the flags in schools. Some have had
end-of-the-year Dream Flag Celebrations. Some have saved them
to show to students the following year. Some have
taken them off of the lines and returned them to
students individually. If you don't know what to do
with them, you can always send them to us since we
can use them as examples for other schools.
Keeping the Dreams On-Line
All year long, the student poems in the Share
section of our site will remain up, (so far we have
poems from six schools and five grade levels) and we
will continue to post dream poems as you send them
in. At any time of the year, we can all use the
poems for discussion, comparison, or just enjoyment
with our classes. Also, we'll keep posting pictures
of Dream Flags and Dream Flag poets in your school
or community as you can send them, so please do.
Just email them to
dreamflags@agnesirwin.org. Also, if you have
information about the Dream Flag project in your
school on your school's own web site, please let us
know. We'd love to post a link to it!
Dreamer T!
Because of the popularity of
the Dream Flag Staff T-shirts used at the Kimmel
event, we've decided to make a Dream
Flag T-shirt available to teachers and students
who would like to order one. It's a great way to
spread the message of The Dream Flag Project, to
connect even more dreams together (and it looks
great!)
The front has a
picture of dream flags and the word "Dreamer." The
back has the name of the project, the website
address, and "Dream Keeper" by Langston Hughes.
Here's how
it will work:
First,
please choose ONE person at your school to
handle your school's order, otherwise, it will
be too much for us to handle.
- We are
offering a variety of sizes--small, medium and
large in Youth; small, medium, large, and
extra-large in Adult.
- There
is no minimum order.
- The
cost is $10 per shirt no matter what size. You
must send a check made out to "The Agnes Irwin
School" for the full amount of the order.
- We
must receive your complete order form (below) and check by
Wednesday,
May 11th.
- Mail
the order and check to
The
Dream Flag Project
The Agnes Irwin School
Ithan Ave. and Conestoga Rd.
Rosemont, PA 19010
- We
expect to mail out the shirt order to each
school by the week of May 30th.
- The
price of $10 is about at cost, but we will use
any proceeds to help provide project materials
for participant schools next year.
Order Form:
Word Document --
Web Page
We Need Your Voice
As we move towards the end of this year and look
towards the next, we can see another Dream Flag
Project coming, and not too far off. We hope it
can become a regular part of what we, as schools, do
together. With that in mind, it makes sense to learn
from our collective experiences each year.
So, we'll
all benefit if each of us can take a few minutes to
email in some comments on how the project worked for
us this year? What are some things that you'd
repeat? What are some things you'd change? Below is
a list of questions and categories we see as useful,
but you should simply write whatever seems most
important and useful to you. . .
Just email
to
dreamflags@agnesirwin.org. (It goes to Jeff.)
Here are some thoughts to consider:
(You could
cut and paste these into an email if that makes it
easier.)
- What
were the greatest strengths of the project?
- What
were the weaknesses of the project?
- What
was of the greatest value to your students?
- What
was a surprise to you?
- Do you
think you'll participate again next year?
- Would
you recommend participating in the project to
others? If so, to whom?
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