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2006-05-23 Home Front: Culture Wars

Chicago: School system tells mapmaker to get lost

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Posted by 3dc 2006-05-23 01:01|| || Front Page|| [4 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Registration required.

Posted by Dave D.">Dave D. 2006-05-23 06:27|| 2006-05-23 06:27|| Front Page Top

#2 BugMeNot access reveals:

Let's say you're a mapmaker. You've created a gorgeous map of 237 of Chicago's neighborhoods--from Pilsen to North Lawndale to Edgewater and so on. Rand McNally and the Chicago Historical Society love it so much they have sold it in their stores. Hollywood producers and city aldermen have requested it.

You've donated copies of the latest edition of your Chicago Neighborhood Map to the Police Department. The police superintendent was so impressed that he thanked you in a formal letter saying, "This map will be distributed to every unit within the Chicago Police Department."

You've even given several copies to the Chicago Fire Department and received a letter from a happy fire commissioner who wrote, "We have distributed a copy to each of our firehouses to display."

You've always wanted to give copies of your topographical treasure to Chicago public schoolchildren. So you get a sponsor who helps make it possible to donate hundreds of the maps, which retail for $50.

This is where mapmaker Christopher Devane's story starts to get thickety because it involves him beginning an odyssey into the Chicago Public Schools system and CPS' counsel eventually sending him a letter to "cease and desist." Yep, cease and desist.

Earlier this year, Devane, a Naperville resident who started drawing maps as an Air Force pilot, contacted CPS' chief of instruction. He said that it took a while to navigate the bureaucracy but that the chief's office eventually gave him a list of area instruction officers and principals so that he could meet with them and present his map at their monthly meetings.

Before the cease-and-desist order, which he received last week, Devane said he attended one CPS meeting. He said the principals loved the map. They spread the word. Teachers and parents loved it too and began e-mailing Devane requesting more.

Why does nearly everybody--except CPS counsel--love this map?

For one thing, the map exudes personality, albeit in a one-dimensional sort of way. The colors are warm. The details are striking. For example, within the South Shore neighborhood you also see the enclave called Jackson Park Highlands.

The map invites you to find your neighborhood and acclimate yourself in relation to communities near and far that perhaps you've only heard about in passing.

Devane grew up in the Beverly neighborhood and started making maps more than 10 years ago. He has designed maps showing the neighborhoods in other cities as well. Using what he calls a "scorched-earth" technique, he solicits part of his research from regular folk who understand the terrain--letter carriers, meter readers, even homeless people.

You remember the recent National Geographic study that polled a lot of young people who couldn't find Louisiana or Mississippi on a map?

Devane believes that if a young person learns to enjoy using maps, he or she can learn to find any place on it--from Schaumburg to Sri Lanka.

Once students have found their neighborhoods on his map, he encourages them to talk about and rediscover their communities, which he calls "meography."

So why is CPS so ticked off about Devane distributing the free maps? Officials say that he didn't follow protocol. Yep, he was supposed to contact the chief of purchasing, not the chief of instruction--even though he wasn't selling anything.

CPS also said he continued to try corresponding with principals and area instruction officers when they told him not to, which is why the cease-and-desist letter was sent.

CPS said also that before the letter, they offered to take the maps and distribute them themselves. Devane said he never received such an offer, but would have declined because he wouldn't have wanted his maps entangled in a bureaucratic quagmire, languishing in a warehouse somewhere. The original point was to make them available to the children.

So that's Devane's map odyssey with CPS and why now he's sort of back where he started.

I'll leave you to decide who's lacking direction and should be clamoring for a map--to find a clue.

Posted by Craing Joluns5358 2006-05-23 07:11|| 2006-05-23 07:11|| Front Page Top

#3 a list of area instruction officers and principals

Area instruction officers?

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2006-05-23 08:54|| 2006-05-23 08:54|| Front Page Top

#4 Ask any Chief Information Officer [that the computer geek in a major corporation] his view of a salesman who end arounds the techies and goes to a VP or CEO to sell his product without coordinating or clearing with his department. The key word is 'salesman'. It usually means the company buys something that doesn't work with the existing or planned system and requires a lot of work around and resources to incorporate or it means lots of meetings to get the 'facts' which the saleman didn't mention out, thus eating up lot of time better spent elsewhere. It's just not a turf war. Considering how much pressure there is for 'political favors' in Chicago, think of an administrator who is actually trying to do it by the book only to be shot down by this type of approach. Hell why even try?

Posted by Unater Cleagum2019 2006-05-23 09:01|| 2006-05-23 09:01|| Front Page Top

#5 That administrator should learn how to pick fights. This was a loser from day one.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2006-05-23 09:02|| 2006-05-23 09:02|| Front Page Top

#6 Stand by for a rant.

While slogging through the gobbledygook courses required for Illinois teacher certification, I studied everything I could find on the history of the CSD and attempts to reform the Chicago School District during Ruth Love's tenure. What I learned about bureaucratic stupidity and turf wars was both heartbreaking and maddening.

My mother taught in Chicago for one year, 1958-59. There were African American students in her school, which was the old firetrap that served the brand new Cabrini Green. The day a black family moved into any school attendance area, the CSD abandoned the school. My mother had 55 first graders in her class, and only construction paper--no scissors or paste--in the supply room. The books were falling apart.

End rant.

I am having trouble understanding what UC2019 is saying. Is he comparing the mapmaker to a salesman? I fail to see the connection between the UC's salesman and a man who's arranged to get something good and useful into the schools, at no cost to the schools.

Posted by mom ">mom 2006-05-23 20:58|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com] 2006-05-23 20:58|| Front Page Top

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