Multicultural America Kids Matter Spring 2009: Betty Brinn Event, May 1

Spring 2009 Collaboration with Kids Matter and Multicultural America Class

Spring 2009 was the second semester in a two part, full year collaboration between the Milwaukee foster care organization, Kids Matter, Inc. and UWM's Multicultural America class. The class teaches the basic skills of reading and writing with media to students who are predominantly non-media production majors.

Since this was the second semester of our collaboration with Kids Matter, as the instructor I wanted us to build on the information relayed in the first semester's website and not simply go over the previous introductory material. However, given the students this semester were entirely new and not familiar with foster care, they were presented with a bit of a bigger challenge by asking them to expand on a topic they first had to research.

I changed the class a bit this semester to accommodate that challenge by turning more time over to each individual student's research interests in foster care, and I believe the class produced very diverse, interesting, and reflective pieces. At the side of the blog you will see links to each student's research and reflection on foster care as well as links to prior versions of this class (working with Kids Matter as well as other community organizations).

This was my third Multicultural America class at UW-Milwaukee, and I thank all our community partners to date and UWM's Cultures & Communities (the organizational home of the class) for the opportunity to work through issues of media theory/practice within the context of community engagement and social justice.

Monday, May 11, 2009

Betty Brinn Event, May 1

Here are some photos taken during a wonderful evening with Kids Matter at the Betty Brinn children's museum. There was a huge crowd of 300+, parents, foster kids, and the dedicated Kids Matter folks. Also, one of the students in our Multicultural America class, Nooruddin Farooqui, helped out at the book exhibit. It was an evening filled with tons of energy, pure joy, and more toys than you can imagine! I was taking photos but tempted to stop and join in the play.