Streetside Stories: Street Blog

Streetside in the News!

2008-05-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

Recently, Streetside was in the news!

You can check out an interview with Streetside Stories staffers Tara and Linda here, on KPFA's Flashpoints program. Just click on May 16th ; Streetside's interview begins at about the 30 minute mark.

Streetside was also featured in Just Cause, a new magazine that focuses on the causes that unite us. You can read the article here.

A Video for Mayor Newsom

2008-04-02T11:40:00.001-07:00

The City of San Francisco is facing enormous budget cuts, including possible cuts in services for children, a time when families are moving out of the city in droves.

Coleman Advocates for Youth and the kids of San Francisco have an excellent response, viewable below.

Streetside and AccesSF

2008-03-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

AccesSF has been very good to Streetside lately.

Last Friday, Streetside Director Linda Johnson and Deputy Director Tomas Riley appeared on SF Live, a show on AccesSF public access television in San Francisco. You can catch their appearance here.

Streetside staff members Helen McGrath, Pedro Reyes, Bernadette Montez and Erika Padilla Morales were just named certified producers by AccesSF. Congratulations, team!

They went through a 15 hour training program, where they learned to make public service announcements, produce and host TV segments, and run sound, camera and graphics. They'll be producing all kinds of content that gets the word out about Streetside, from PSAs to news features. So stay tuned to cable channel 29 in San Francisco!

Poems from Francisco

2008-03-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

Streetside just finished up a great after school workshop at Francisco Middle School as part of our Literate Learners project. Literate Learners is an initiative that offers our Tech Tales, Storytelling Exchange, and Streetside After School programs to middle school English language learners in San Francisco and Oakland.

Often, English learners don't get a lot of arts education, and they miss out on the sizable benefits that the arts provide. Literate Learners is working to fill that gap for 1,000 students. We're even getting a formal evaluation of the project done by WestEd, to find out how we help English learners, and how we can help them even more.

In Literate Learners, we've seen newcomers to the United States get up and do theater, write full stories in English, and share their work with others, out loud. We're very proud of these students, and the power their stories have to get them excited about learning English.

Here's a poem, written by Literate Learners participant Sandy Jiang.

Immigrants are People
Immigrants are people
From north, south, east west
Immigrants are people
Come in spring, summer, fall, winter
Immigrants are people
Work hard, get paid less
Immigrants are people
Speak language differently
Immigrants are people
Honestly
Immigrants are people
Selflessly
Immigrants are people
Same as others
Seeking freedom and happiness

And another, by Vinh Nguyen.

I Am Here
I am here
I am like a big ball
Like a moon,
And I am an apple in trees the wind can’t blow
I want happiness
I feel so good

Help Streetside by Searching the Web!

2008-01-29T17:54:00.001-08:00

We just learned about an amazing new web tool called GoodSearch. And we hope you'll use it to benefit Streetside.

GoodSearch is a search engine, and a good one (it's got the same capabilities as Yahoo!)

For every search you perform on GoodSearch, Streetside will receive a little more than a cent. Sounds like nothing, right? Well, think about how many web searches you do each day. Then imagine 100 people or more using GoodSearch every day. That's a lot of searches.

Streetside can earn $500, $1,000 or even $1,500 a year if a bunch of people use GoodSearch as their search engine. $1,000 is enough to buy all of the art supplies we use in our after school programs this year. It's enough to buy a new laptop for one of our tech programs. It's enough to pay for printing student learning materials for 1,000 students. In short, it makes a big difference.

Here's how:

Just go to http://www.goodsearch.com/. In the box that asks who you GoodSearch for, enter Streetside Stories. Then, click to add GoodSearch to your toolbar (it works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari). Or click to make it your homepage. Either way, it will make using GoodSearch automatic.

GoodSearch also has something called GoodShop, which directs a percentage of your purchases from popular stores like J. Crew, Zappos and Best Buy to your chosen charity. You'll see more info on the GoodSearch page.

Thanks for searching!

Streetside Stories
GoodSearch

Sharing Days

2008-01-16T12:10:00.000-08:00

At the end of each of our Streetside After School workshops, Streetside has a sharing day. On that day, students share the stories they created with Streetside for an audience of fellow students, parents, teachers and friends. They get recognition for being part of a community of storytellers, in the form of a certificate of achievement and lots of applause. Many of our older students even get a cash stipend for completing the program. Then everyone has pizza and juice.

This year, Streetside is having at least 38 sharing days. Wow, that's a lot of pizza!

Last week, we had a sharing day at Glen Park Elementary in San Francisco, where we helped 60 kindergarten through second grade students become storytellers. All of these brave students got up on stage, shared stories and showed off the books they created.

Above, staff member Erika Alexander helps a student practice before taking the stage.

Streetside Stories
Arts Education
afterschool programs
Glen Park Elementary

Streetside Fall Showcase on KPFA!

2007-12-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

On December 14, Streetside students showcased the stories they created this fall. There were lots of holiday treats, a showing of our Streetside video, and lots of digital stories, photos, and published work.

Best of all, the second hour of the showcase was broadcast live on KPFA's La Onda Bajita radio show.

Streetside kids and their families chatted with the hosts and shared stories, with a cheering audience backing them up. As Streetside kids, headphones on, spoke into the mic, their parents were standing beside them, full of pride.

You can listen to the broadcast here.

Raising Voices

2007-11-07T12:16:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, we held our annual fundraising breakfast, Raising Voices, at the Sir Francis Drake downtown.

We were so thrilled about sharing Streetside's work with our 250 guests. So many people came forward with donations, advice, and offers to volunteer. We have raised over $51,000 to date. Wow! Thanks to our wonderful and generous community. And thanks to the staff, board, table captains and speakers who made it all happen.

Streetside's Executive Director Linda Johnson

Audrey Adams, speaker and teacher extraordinaire, talks about working with Streetside.

Angelica and Carlos Escobar. Angelica's digital story about her dad serving in Iraq was amazing.

Longtime Streetsider Peter Vestal

Streetside Stories
Sir Francis Drake
arts education

Streetside's Website is a Winner!

2007-10-31T18:22:00.000-07:00

We got some great news yesterday! Our website has won a 2007 Horizon Interactive Award.

Thanks to our amazing web designer, Deirdre Spencer, and our fantastic team from the Taproot Foundation, we won Bronze Honors in the Public Service category.

And while we're thanking people, we wouldn't have such great web traffic if it wasn't for our Google Grant. This amazing program, which gives us free Adwords advertising, has brought tens of thousands of people to our site.

Streetside Stories
Horizon Interactive
google grants
Taproot Foundation

A Trend in Arts Education?

2007-09-24T17:48:00.000-07:00

There was a great article in Edutopia recently about trends in education.

One trend that was highlighted is the move away from arts education in schools, due partly to the rigors of the No Child Left Behind law. At the same time, though, arts education is being seen more and more, by parents and educators, as a crucial part of education and achievement.

(Statistics here, for those who want more info about arts education's impact).

The resulting demand for arts education, coupled with the lack of school time for arts, means that community-based organizations like Streetside are being called on more and more to provide arts programs. That often happens after school, or
during school, when teaching artists make the arts part of subjects like language arts and social studies.

In San Francisco, The San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Families has been at the forefront of this trend. They've begun supporting the arts after school, giving new grants to many of San Francisco's finest arts providers, like 826 Valencia, Cellspace, and Performing Arts Workshop, not to mention Streetside.

For Streetside, the increased interest in the arts after school means that we are
offering after school programming to over 400 students this year--so
far. Our schedule of after school workshops used to be a couple of pages long. Now it's 11 pages long. Just today, three new staff people came in, reporting back excitedly about their new groups, who were choosing blog names and playing theater games.

A New School Year!

2007-09-06T14:25:00.001-07:00

We've had a busy summer, moving to our new home at 20th and Harrison and getting ready for our biggest year of programming ever.

Streetside plans to help 2,500 youth tell their stories this year--our biggest year ever. And when we say working with youth, we mean that each youth we serve will receive at least 16 hours of Streetiside programming, with lots of hands on attention from staff and our wonderful volunteers. Usually, it's even more than that.

Streetside also has the biggest staff we've ever had this year--sixteen full and part time staff members. We started off the year right, with a 2.5 day training (shown in the photos) in all of the tools we need to do a great job--classroom management, cultural competency, youth development, and working with English Language Learners.

Our first day of school? September 17, when the Tech Tales program will kick off at Francisco Middle School in San Francisco.

cultural competence
youth development
Streetside Stories
arts education

Summer at Streetside

2007-07-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

For many years, summers were a very quiet time at Streetside Stories. Quite a few of our staff work only during the school year. In our quiet summer offices, the remaining staff would develop curriculum, get organized for the start of a new school year, and tackle special projects.

We're still doing all that, but this summer, for the first time, Streetside is also busy with summer programming. We're working at four sites (incuding Glide and the Blue Bear School of Music), with about 40 elementary and middle school students, helping kids tell their stories. It's a lot of fun to work with kids during the summer, when the pace is more relaxed.

There's something else that's keeping us busy--we're planning a move! After more than ten years in the South of Market, Streetside will be moving to the Mission District in August.

Stay tuned for more details!

Streetside Stories
blue Bear School of Music
Glide
Summer Programs

Streetside Reading at Book Passage!

2007-06-11T14:05:00.001-07:00

Here's a few photos from our recent reading at Book Passage bookstore at the Ferry Building. Students from our Storytelling Exchange program read from our new anthology, Working It Out: San Francisco Youth Solve Real Problems.

Thanks to folks at the bookstore, who were amazing hosts, and to all the wonderful youth and families who attended! The view was probably the best one we've ever had at a Streetside event. You can pick up a book at Book Passage, or drop us a line. The books will be available for sale on Streetside's website this week!

Streetside Stories
Storytelling Exchange
Book Passage
Ferry Building

The End of the Year!

2007-06-07T15:40:00.001-07:00

Front Row: Anna, Karla, Jenn and Vanessa Second Row: Nefertiti, Cecilia, Erika, Diana, Cindy, Linda, Bernadette, Noelle, and Pio Back: Melissa, Stephanie, Marco, Curt, and Jose

Streetside's year comes to a close at the end of each school year. We reflect on our accomplishments, hold lots of year-end events, and start planning our next year.

Today, the staff celebrated helping over 1,500 youth tell their stories this year. We had burgers and shakes at Taylor's Automatic Refresher and then took this (not very good) picture of our staff and interns. Five years ago, Streetside had only 5 staff. Today, we have thirteen staff members, and over 100 volunteers and interns. Thanks to everyone who made this an amazing year for Streetside and our students, including you!

Streetside Stories
taylor's automatic refresher
arts education

Streetside in Vegas!

2007-06-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

Streetside's Director Linda Johnson went to the Americans for the Arts conference in Las Vegas last weekend. Wow! Las Vegas sure is noisy, hot, cold, and overstimulating!

One highlight was seeing friends from The Crossroads Project, a groundbreaking community arts project based in New Orleans. They were the only arts education organization at the conference who actually brought youth with them, and led an amazing workshop that included african drumming.

Below, Mat, Matthew, Will and Roque from the Crossroads Project, along with Linda.

Another was seeing the Neon Museum, which is currently not a museum, but a "neon boneyard" full of cool old signs from around Vegas. They are currently raising money to construct a museum. Below (and at top of page), signs from their collection.

Last but not least, Sir Ken Robinson, who spoke at the conference. Sir Ken is a brilliant thinker who believes that our current, industrialized model of education, created to serve the needs of business, is serving neither business nor humans. He believes that restructuring education to make full use the natural human capacity for creativity through the arts is key to meeting the future. Watch him speak here--he's very funny.

Las Vegas
Neon Museum
Streetside Stories
The Crossroads Project
Sir Ken Robinson

Bored at School

2007-05-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

An article in today's Contra Costa Times talks about how kids in low-performing schools take multiple language arts and math classes each day. As a result, students are often taking no electives at all--no science, no art, even no social studies.

This trend is largely a result of the increased focus on testing. Schools are desperately striving to meet improvement goals on standardized tests, or be penalized. In the process, students often lose their shot at a well-rounded and fun education.

We see this phenomenon all the time in schools. Students tell us that our program is the only arts experience they've had all year. And they often seem bored, disconnected from learning. Who can blame them? Wouldn't most of us feel the same?

Streetside focuses not on increasing test scores, but on building community and helping young people find their unique voices as writers and people. When we come into a classroom, young people, asked what they think and how they feel, come alive. And as an added bonus, research has found that our Storytelling Exchange program raises language arts test scores.

standardized tests
arts education
remedial classes
Streetside Stories

Feeling Like Winners

2007-05-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

Streetside students were big winners at Young At Art, San Francisco's youth arts celebration! Our students won a bunch of awards this year. Congratulations to Streetside intern Tanea Lunsford, a School of the Arts student who won a Bronze in the Short Story category. And also to:

Polly Lesaguis Honorable Mention Personal Essay/Memoir
Christoper Li'O Honorable Mention Personal Essay/Memoir
Shayna Ryan Honorable Mention Personal Essay/Memoir
Yasi At-Chan Bronze Poetry
Ciera Moberg Bronze Poetry

Lots of student work from our KIPP Digital Teachers project and our Tech Tales program was also highlighted at the Media Arts celebration.

**********

Every three years, The San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families has a new funding round. People who work at nonprofits all over San Francisco agonize over their proposals and rush to DCYF to drop off their applications before the deadline.

Last week, we found out that we were one of the 172 organizations funded (450 proposals were submitted). We received funding to offer even more of our quality afterschool programming to elementary and middle school students around the city. Next year, we'll serve triple the number of students after school that we served in 2005!

Every year, nonprofits often have to fundraise like crazy, raising their budgets all over again. Getting multi-year funding from DCYF helps us concentrate on making our work better instead. Thanks, DCYF!

Young At Art
San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families
afterschool programs
Streetside Stories

National Volunteer Week!

2007-04-16T18:08:00.000-07:00

Did you know that it's National Volunteer Week? We personally think it should be a whole month, at least!

A new report about volunteering says that volunteerism went down slightly in 2006, after reaching all time highs after September 11, 2001.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

An increase in volunteerism from 20.4 percent in 1989 to 26.7 percent in 2006 was heavily influenced by a sharp increase, almost doubling, in the volunteer rates of young people ages 16-19, according to the report, released at the start of National Volunteer Week.

That's certainly true at Streetside. Of the approximately 100 volunteers who help us every year, most (but not all) are college students. And this spring, we launched a new paid internship program. The program offers opportunities for high school students from the communities we serve to give back, get work experience, and earn a little cash, too! It's great having their perspective, and their help.

Hooray for volunteers!

[Streetside Stories]
[volunteerism]
[volunteers]
[interns]

Streetside is Today's Daily Candy

2007-04-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Streetside's Tech Tales program was featured on today's Daily Candy blog! Thanks, Daily Candy!

Daily Candy
Tech Tales
Streetside Stories

A Fantastic Poem

2007-04-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

Most of the writing students do in our programs is in story form. But a few years ago, when we were developing our Streetside After School program, we surveyed youth and found that they really wanted to write poetry after school. So we added a unit on poetry focused on self and identity to our new program.

A few years later, the youth we work with have written hundreds of really cool poems.

Here's one recent one, by Timmy Yu of Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in San Francisco.

Like Me

I am from life,
from the honor of honor.
I am from the place, as strange as yet to be
like the wind and the breeze.
I am from the autumn,
still many from dawn.
I am from the herd
From the red and the blue,
A piston in birth

Please, I am from me.
From the brain mechanic,
From dare of truth.
I am from

I am from a place like me.

poetry
Streetside Stories
afterschool programs

Sad News

2007-04-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

Today we found out the sad news--Cody's Books in San Francisco will be closing. This follows on the heels of the closing of their famous Berkeley store.

Streetside had planned to hold our annual reading from the Streetside Anthology at Cody's this year. The staff there was so helpful and welcoming.

We began working with Cody's this year because the bookstore we'd been partnering with, A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books, went out of business in 2006.

Stay tuned for more news about our reading, and buy a book at an independent bookstore today!

Cody's Books
Independent Bookstores
Streetside Stories

Streetside on The Radio, Part 2

2007-03-23T17:47:00.001-07:00

Today Streetside's Executive Director, Linda Johnson, taped a segment for the radio show Quake Conversations. Tune in to learn more about our work!

You can catch it on Sunday, March 25th on a few different stations:

KNEW, 910AM, 6:30 AM
KKSF, 103.7 FM, 7:00 AM
The Quake, 960AM, at 12:30 PM
Star 101.3 FM, 11:00 PM

Youth: Perception and Reality

2007-03-20T13:40:00.000-07:00

All too often youth are seen as the cause of societal problems like drugs and violence. But when youth get a chance to tell their own stories, we've found that perception and reality are very different. As one of our Streetside Teaching Artists says: "If you don't tell your own story, someone else will tell it for you."

This San Francisco Chronicle column addresses the suspiciously high arrest rate among African-Americans in San Francisco. The article talks about how unevenly justice is applied in this famously openminded city. And in the process, it debunks a common myth--that crimes committed by youth are increasing. The crime rate among youth in San Francisco has actually dropped sharply--and teen pregnancy and dropout rates have fallen too. Our youth are, more and more, making safe and responsible choices. Oddly, it's middle-aged people who are being arrested more often. As the author, Michael Males writes:

Even after a generation of dramatic changes, today's law-enforcement authorities, with their thinking stuck in decades past, perceive of crime and drugs as "youth crises." So they continue to blame young people -- who comprise small and diminishing fractions of the city's arrests. This backward thinking prevents formulation of innovative policies that match the trends.

We notice the choices of San Francisco youth as we help them write their stories. All too often, youth write about the fear of becoming a victim of crime. They talk about their desire to avoid bad choices, and to contribute to their communities. Alot of the time, they're thinking about the things we hope they would be thinking about: homework vs. Playstation, a trip to an amusement park, family, making new friends...

Jennifer Ling wrote about finding a friend smoking:

"I saw Big C smoking a cigarette. I felt myself having pressure like two giraffes just jumped on me. I quickly ran outside the slimy bathroom. Then she came out looking shocked."

Ry'Ann Alana Richardson wrote about dong community service:

"At the senior center, I worked for two hours playing games like checkers and cards with the seniors while they told me folktales, or tales of their lives as children."

Yandy Padilla shared a story about a family member in Honduras who joined a gang:

"I think about the choices that my cousin has made. I don't want to make the same choices. As a gang member, he gets into trouble and gets into fights. He runs away from the cops and uses drugs. But I want to do well in life and school. Some people ask me to do drugs, but I say no because that is bad for me."

It's so important that we hear the voices of our young people straight from the source. Youth have lots of stories to tell, and Streetside gives them a platform to make their voices heard.

March is Arts Education Month!

2007-03-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

March is Arts Education Month!

Streetsiders celebrated by attending a fantastic symposium put on by the Alameda County Office of Education's Alliance for Arts Learning Leadership. The efforts of Louise Music and her crew to bring arts education to every school, every child, every day are a model that should be followed nationwide. They manage to make everyone--students, parents, schools, arts providers--feel included and ready to take on the challenges of changing our educational system.

The Alliance brought David Perkins and Lois Hetland, two architects of the Teaching For Understanding framework. TFU, as it's often called, is a brilliantly simple way for educators to build lessons that truly engage youth, and help them develop a deep understanding. Streetside uses TFU in our collaboration with KIPP Schools, and we're always eager to learn more.

New Study Looks at Arts Ed in California

2007-03-02T10:51:00.000-08:00

A new study, An Unfinished Canvas, is showing that only 11% of schools statewide meet state goals for arts education. The report can be downloaded here.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and SRI International conducted the study. According to the study:

*29% of California schools do not offer a standards-based course of study in any of the four arts disciplines—music, visual arts, theatre, and dance.
*89% of California schools fail to offer a standards-based course of study in all four disciplines, falling short of state goals.
*61% of schools do not have even one full-time equivalent arts specialist.
*Standards alignment, assessment, and accountability practices are uneven in arts education, and often not present at all.
*California students lag behind the national average in hours of arts instruction—up to 50% less in music and visual arts instruction at the elementary level.

As we've blogged about before, research has shown Streetside's amazing results when working with students. Our programs increase test scores, help students engage in school, and build community. But students need much more than any one program or teacher can offer. They need arts to be woven into their school experience, and to receive arts experiences that build on each other.

We look forward to the impact this study can have at building arts opportunities for students statewide.

Press coverage of the study can be found here.

In local news, the San Francisco Examiner ran an update about how the San Francisco Unified School District is working to integrate arts into schools through the Arts Education Master Plan. Go SFUSD!