Since a major focus of the Teaching the Levees curriculum is the portrayal of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans through media, I thought it might be useful to provide some alternative and interesting ways that journalists, artists and other individuals have chronicled the narrative of Katrina and subsequent recovery efforts.

The first resource is of course the many blogs and online magazines written by New Orleans natives, which attempt to report on life in post-Katrina N.O. from a personal perspective. Check out NOLAfugees.com for a collaborative effort, as well as personal blogs such as NOLA-dishu, Toulouse Street, and Moldy City, with many more listed on the blogrolls of each site. If you’re trying to find examples of interesting blogs and articles for classroom use, it might be helpful to search individual blog archives or examine their tags and categories.

In addition, I recently came across A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, a webcomic (and soon-to-be graphic novel) by Josh Neufeld which explores the post-Katrina narrative through “comics reportage.” Check out the original webcomic online or buy the book when it’s released in August. This could be a very engaging way to explore this topic for students.

Finally, another interesting example is Tempest in Crescent City, an online game created by Brooklyn high school students, aided by Global Kids and game developers Digital Creations. The game aims to educate students about Hurricane Katrina, celebrate New Orleans, and raise awareness about continuing struggles in the city. Their website includes lesson plans and resources for educators as well.

All of these alternatives could be great ways to encounter the story of Katrina or to spark a discussion about the different modes of portraying these issues. Let us know if find any other resources!

Yesterday, I read Dan Baum’s blog on the New York Times’ website and thought that the content (along with the ensuing comments) was a good illustration of an important culture clash that runs through the post-Katrina recovery effort. Now, Baum’s nothing if not experienced in New Orleans matters (read his excellent New Yorker series here) and if you read through the comments on his post, its easy to see how much many residents of the city value his contributions to the reporting effort following the disaster.

At the same time, there are aspects of this particular article that could be perceived as overly romanticized. While Baum’s writing clearly conveys his heartfelt love for the city (something that many praise in the comments) and he aptly recognizes that many New Orleanians are suspicious of outsiders’ efforts to rebuild their city “better.” However, many readers take issue with his conclusion that this suspicion stems from an easy-going mentality and a complete acceptance of the many problems that the city undoubtedly has faced in the past and continues to wrestle with today. Baum writes, “In their zeal to imagine a new city, the big-picture planners lost sight of how happy New Orleanians had been with the old one.” Much to many of his readers’ chagrin, he suggests that NOLA residents are uninterested in rebuilding a city devoid of poverty and crime.
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What’s the current situation in New Orleans? It seems the news media can’t agree. While the Chicago Sun-Times recently published a sunny article describing how recovery money has steeled New Orleans against the recession (leading young, laid-off workers to flock to the area) and the Times-Picayune suggested that the 2013 Superbowl (recently awarded to the city) would spark an “economic engine,” other reports were not quite so favorable. The Economist labeled New Orleans a City of Sickness, describing a persistent lack of medical services and a preponderance of vacant homes, while The Nation suggested that putting taxpayer dollars towards luxury Superbowl improvements was the wrong kind of spending for a city with little stable infrastructure and high poverty rates. Furthermore, Mayor Ray Nagin in his recent State of the City address discussed the continuing racial divide within New Orleans, and the Los Angeles Times published a story indicating the distress of the city’s black population over unfavorable housing regulations.

An op-ed on a local Louisiana news site goes so far as to describe the “two cities of Orleans,” echoing the perplexing divide in the media’s recent coverage of the recovery process. In truth, however, New Orleans has perhaps always been two cities, or more than two, depending on your perspective. Historically (and as noted in the Teaching the Levees curriculum), the Crescent City has possessed one of the nation’s highest rates of economic inequality, as well as complicated racial definitions stretching back to the 1700s.

In the face of past crises, New Orleans’ response has rarely been simple. After the schools crisis of 1960 (in which the first attempts at school integration were made in the city, causing a violent reaction on the part of white supremacists in the region), the city seemed to progress and decline simultaneously. While the crisis galvanized the black community, and eventually led to a more open political system (at least on the surface level), it also spurred the start of a long trend of white flight, leading to an increase in poverty and inequality and a decline in population.

As such, New Orleans in particular can be hard to peg down when it comes to the city’s progress. It is important to recognize these historical patterns as we explore the narrative of post-Katrina recovery and attempt to make sense of the variability in the stories available. It is also valuable to note that the challenge of rebuilding the city is not just one of resurrection, but also of unification in areas that have previously been dangerously disparate.

June 1st marked the beginning of the 2009 hurricane season, again prompting concern as to how the city of New Orleans will fare in the coming summer’s weather. In recognition of this fact, the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project (GCCWP) gathered volunteers from across the country in Washington, D.C. to lobby for the passage of H.R. 2269, also known as the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act. The bill, first brainstormed by students in San Jose and introduced into Congress in May, seeks the funding of 100,000 “green jobs” for displaced residents of the Gulf Coast to rebuild the infrastructure of their local communities.

The GCCWP and its bill, which are supported by groups ranging from Oxfam America to local Gulf Coast non-profits, are an excellent example of an initiative started by New Orleans outsiders (students over 2100 miles away from the city) that works not just to provide the city with services or make donations, but to empower New Orleans’ residents and allow them to regain ownership of their community. While the bill has yet to receive a Senate sponsor or support from the Obama administration (making its passage much less likely, especially in these financial times), the campaign has successfully sought out the support of dozens of Gulf Coast organizations, as well as the city councils of New Orleans and surrounding municipalities. In addition, it advocates for placing the opportunity and responsibility for revitalizing the city (via public works projects) directly into the hands of the city’s residents.

This question of ownership is relevant even within the classroom, as we struggle to make the story of New Orleans and the rebuilding process our own while still recognizing that the city ultimately belongs to its citizens. How do we teach the story of Katrina and call upon ourselves to address the essential questions laid out within the Teaching the Levees curriculum while still maintaining this balance?

This past semester, as part of a history class at Swarthmore College, I set out to write a history of New Orleans and its struggle for educational reform (both before and after Katrina). Throughout this project, I constantly had to remind myself that the issues that define the city are complex and nuanced. By regarding the city as “mine” and myself as an expert, I risked oversimplifying its central dilemmas and missing the inherent lessons that can be learned from its history. I hope that as we move into the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we can continue to grapple with the complexities of the city and applaud efforts to empower its citizens.

First of all, a quick introduction. I’m Rebekah Judson, an intern here at Teachers College, and a current student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. For the summer, I’ll be guest blogging here on the Teaching The Levees site, hopefully sharing with you some interesting updates on the recovery effort in the Gulf Coast, as well as any connections I might find to the Levees curriculum’s larger themes and questions.

To begin with, I don’t claim to be any sort of expert on Hurricane Katrina. My upbringing and education have occurred exclusively in the Northeast, distant in both geography and mindset from the city of New Orleans, the Mississippi River, the surrounding bayous and swamps. Yet, over the past few years, I have found myself again and again returning to the essential questions that surround Katrina, those that trigger deep probing about the nature of our democracy and our future. In 2006, I spent a summer rebuilding houses in Abbeville, LA, a small town a few hours from both New Orleans and Baton Rouge. This past semester, I returned to the region in an academic sense, chronicling the history of New Orleans’ public schools.

Given my background as a student, I hope to be able to both share my own insights and learn from you as well. Please feel free to respond with comments and questions of your own, whether as educators or simply as interested readers. I will be making my first posts soon, and I look forward to hearing from you.