School21 UK

Recently had a chance to spend a day at school21, a new UK charter school that opened this academic year. Edward Fidoe, co-founder of the school, was my guide for the day. school21 is situated in East London and serves a diverse population of students, many of whom (approximately half) rely on government assistance programs.

The school opened with two grade levels and is in temporary structures while the building is being completed on an adjacent lot. There are certainly overlaps between the UK charter policy schools and the US variety, with claims of a demanding curriculum, orderly classrooms while holding out the promise of university education upon completion. Yet this school did not have the hard-edge associated with many charters in the NYC metro area. I spent most of my time in the secondary grades and noticed that teachers draw upon a range of pedagogical approaches, from small groups, Socratic dialogues and multimedia teaching. Students were writing narratives about the school's development, dramatizing them through the use of silhouetting in film and creating tableau shots for the film in development. Drama and the arts are clearly valued here and one of the lead teachers, Daniel, shares his creativity liberally with students and staff.

Performance, in keeping with an arts-focused school, constitutes a major activity of the school. Students are often asked to 'show what they know' as assessments are geared towards performance-based activities. Edward noted the care and dedication that students and staff give to these activities evident in the quality of the performances themselves.

It's always a pleasure to visit a school-in-the-making like school21. There is a sense of energy about this sort of school as they are establishing traditions and creating something new together.  Too, there's a belief that so much is possible when beginning anew and one can definitely grasp that from this one.  I look forward to visiting again when they are in their new digs and see how their progress towards developing 21st Century learning comes along!

Historic Sites and Reflections in England

Spending the week visiting England on ongoing research related to my next book.  I feel a bit overwhelmed by how much history one is confronted by here, from the ancients of Stonehenge to the recency of the British crown and the German bombings of London. My visit to Stonehenge was overwhelming given the iconic quality of the image and my great anticipation in visiting. I hadn't realized that it was originally a wood henge, henge originally meaning a 'hang' in Saxon, though given the significance of the site it has come to be paired with the round structures like it from throughout the ancient world. The original intent of Stonehenge's builders will likely never be known as there is no written record and therefore a great deal of supposition on the basis of archaeological evidence. Given that the stones are arranged in a way that marks the winter/summer solstices, it likely had some significance as a celestial/spiritual site. An important reminder for me as a teacher was the constant refrain of the audiotour (which is outstanding and included in the price of your ticket, about 8£ now, soon to double with the building of a new visitors center): we don't know. Experts do not know the manner of construction, the purpose of the site, how it may have been used over time and all types of other things. The uncertainty of studying the more distant past is a great reminder of the limits of what we can know historically and about a range of other areas.  Again, a good reminder.

I also visited the Roman Bath at Bath (a likely name for the town). This was a remarkable site, though not quite as storied as Stonehenge, given the incredible engineering feat that it marked for the period (~50 BCE). The Romans had a penchant for leisure, at least for some classes in society, and one could easily see the parallels between the spa-obsession of today and a similar one many years ago. Perhaps the one difference is that the Romans was integrally woven into their spirituality as they worshipped the goddess Sulis Minerva at the springs that she created, known to them as Aquae Sulis. One might say that modern spas have an idolatry of their own, the self, though that may be too facile a read. My pictures of the site are of such a poor quality that I'd recommend their website which has a  virtual walk of the temple/bath.

Today I visited the Tower of London, the center of British power from the time of William the Conqueror (1066, Tower circa. 1094) up through the 17th Century (when as the Brits would say, 'bloody hell broke loose'.) The focus of the tour was gore, and my was it!  We heard about the execution of King Charles I in 1649 blow by blow, so to speak.  I'll save the details but suffice it to say that it was a good reminder of how power and violence are interwoven.

Memorial site of the beheading of Anne Bolyen, Queen and second wife of Henry VIII.  Ironically a glass pillow marks the spot.

Museums and Memory

Visiting Warsaw and Krakow, Poland last week and had an opportunity to do some sight-seeing while conducting research for my next book. Two museums related to the Holocaust stood out prominently, the first the Mausoleum of Struggle and Martyrdom which was the Gestapo Headquarters in Warsaw and the second the factory of Oskar Schindler in Krakow. The narratives of the museum were quite distinct, as the Mausoleum emphasized resistance to the Third Reich and the unspeakable cruelty of this era at their hands. Schindler's museum also emphasized resistance but in this case, that cunningly organized by one of the Nazis themselves, an 'enemy within' who clearly did not abide by the eugenics arguments being offered as justification for the Reich's actions.

The Mausoleum was a particularly frightening museum as it felt more like a haunted house one might visit at an amusement park, except for the constant reminder of how real this one in fact was. You enter a long series of chambers where interrogations of prisoners occurred by the Nazi police. Audio fills the hall of shrieks of pain to simulate the torture that occurred there, ghastly sounds that stick with you long after you leave the place.  Perhaps most haunting of all is the image on the far end of the wall, pictured here on the left.  It's the silhouette of a man who was beaten and is falling down. As you get closer to it, you realize that your shadow becomes part of the image. I had difficulty interpreting this play of image. Was it suggesting that we are implicated in the crimes that took place here? Or that we too are being called upon to help people who are victims? This too lingered in my memory after I left, which in the end I think was part of the intention of the museum curators.

I then visited Oskar Schindler's factory in Krakow. This was a 'grand tour' type of museum, depicting life in Krakow prior to the Nazi invasion, the invasion and General Gouvernment period, followed by the end of Nazi occupation. It was less a story about the Jewish factory workers Schindler employed, and thereby protected, and more a broad explanation of Krakow during World War II.

What I found most striking about this museum is the final exhibit, which is a cylindrical room with high ceiling and beaming white light, the walls covered with excerpts of survivor's testimony. Oskar Schindler was later named by the Israeli government as a member of the Order of the Righteous for his actions during the war. It struck me that righteousness has a generally negative connotation i the US and yet at some level we would want our children to act as Shindler did, with a sense of what was right in a larger social context that was extolling the opposite. It led me to wonder, is righteousness a term that is recoverable from its pejorative connotations now? Can we have righteousness in the world and can we value it?

Ma'o Organic Farms

Great visit to Ma'o Organic Farms today! Situated on the leeward (or 'dry') side of Oahu, the farm is just above the town.  We were led by Kamu Enos who gave an orientation to the philosophy of the farm.  He explained that there were three dimensions to the work including economic, social and respect for ancestry. As to economic, the farm is non-for profit that generated 750,000 in revenue last year as it sells top-rate produce to grocery stores, restaurants and locals. The social aspects relate to the employees, nearly all of whom are 17-23, enrolled in Leeward Community College while working on the farm three days per week.  They are given tuition and a stipend and this helps to provide a path forward for these young people from an economically disadvantaged region of Hawai'i. And lastly the indigenous roots of the farm are maintained through the practicing of traditional, sustainable agriculture wherein the ancestors viewed the ground, rather than the crops, as the resource and only lived off the fat of the land while honoring the ground from which it came. 

Ironically, as Kamu was talking about the restaurants they sold to, I realized that I had eaten the best beet salad of my life the night before...and it came from Ma'o.  This is exactly the kind of sustainable agriculture, nutritional foods with a social conscious that is desperately needed. Congrats to all at Ma'o for their efforts!

Limahuli Gardens in Kauai

Visited Limahuli Gardens in a pristine part of the island of Kauai, utterly beautiful in every sense, with sloping mountains that reach down to wide lagoons, turquoise water and amazing surf.  The setting was truly like nothing else I have ever seen. The gardens are undertaking the building of a hale, a traditional Hawai'ian home, using guava, iron wood and eucalyptus trees. The builders were from a company that builds hales, one of the few crews in Hawai'i that preserve the art of building traditional homes. I spent the morning lending a hand, jumping up on the rafters to align, hold and lash the limbs together. Jordan, a native Hawai'ian, explained the wrapping procedure, which involved strapping the smaller limb to the larger, wrapping what appeared to be a leather thread 5 times (with each lashing round holding about 1000 pounds) and using a series of reverse knots to hold the lashing in place. 

  

Walking on the structure, I could feel the tensile strength of it, the way that it both held tightly and flexed as some 15-20 people moved over the roof and placed beams. I thought about the ingenuity of the design as there are intensely high winds coming off the Pacific but the lattice framing allows for wind to pass through.  I spent about two hours on the hale and was fully immersed in the work, reminding me of earlier days in construction. There is something poetic about this type of labor as you quickly lose yourself in the rhythm of the work and the focus that it requires.  As the leader called for lunch, I found myself wanting to do more.

After lunch I walked the garden with Kawika, stripping ti stems from the plants in preparation for a visit by a group of local students tomorrow so they could make hula anklets.  Tiana, also a terrific guide for the day, shared insights about working with teachers, students and the wider community in an effort to sustain traditional ways of living. 

I couldn't recommend a better place to spend a day while on Kauai...and if you go, be sure to pitch in and volunteer!

Collective Rights and Gun Violence

I've been spending time recently reviewing human rights education and came across this WissensWerte project to explicate what can be a complicated area of conversation. The short video details the emergence of civil and political rights (1st generation), social, cultural and economic rights (2nd generation) and collective rights (3rd generation). The latter category is among the most controversial, depending on one's context, as these rights suggest that there are guarantees that people hold as a collectivity, not individually, such as the freedom to leave in peace, the freedom to a clean and satisfactory environment and the freedom to develop through a sovereign nation's resources.

I couldn't help but think about this understanding of rights in light of the gun control debate now raging in the US. After the truly disturbing killings in Newtown, Connecticut and the frequent reports of daily murders in Chicago, the US is absorbed in this rights issue yet again. I blogged about this past summer after the Aurora, Colorado killings which included a really interesting graphic depicting the violence of the US compared to other similar nations.   Framing this as a matter of rights, with the right to bear arms arguably a civil and political right and freedom from gun violence a collective right, may be a useful formula for public debate.

Yet, I'm reminded of the second-class ratings of things that point towards a collective in the US and am troubled by what this holds out for any possible new legislation. But with nearly 9,000 killed annually as a result of gun violence, is it possible that this moment passes without any changes? 

Green Hub for Teachers

I'm visiting Toronto this week as part of my sabbatical research and attended a session by Dick Holland about Cool 2.0. Teachers across Canada use this space to share resources, lesson ideas and other materials about a wide-range of environmental topics.

As their website says, "The teaching of climate change, energy, and sustainability is timely, urgent, and engaging across a range of subjects and grades. Recent policy initiatives in a number of Canadian provinces now encourage or require the integration of environmental education."

Teachers can register for the site and then have an online space to keep materials for easy reference. There are also national competitions for building sustainable products, such as a solar oven competition. Students develop a solar oven according to the design specifications and then submit it to the test. No small feat to cook using the sun in Canada during spring...check it out!

Secrets, Fixing and Bad Schools?

I appreciate the insights of David Kirp who writes in the NY Times recently about Union City (NJ) schools and their turnaround. He describes the kind of caring, inquiring and productive environment that we should want every child to have, lessons that reach "head and heart" where the school "feels like an extended family." Kirp's rightly pokes at the desire for 'new' approaches in education, a seemingly endless pattern, all the rage in education. What's more, all of this is happening in a public school.

My only concern with the piece is the title. The use of terms likes 'secrets' and 'fixing' implies the same sort of treatment that unleashed the charter reforms of the past decade.  As Kirp notes, there are no secrets in education, no simple fixes that create magical children. We already know the answers and have for quite some time.

I happen to be in Canada this week, working with educators who are developing a child rights approach to schools. Their take on what makes teachers good is remarkably similar to what Kirp describes in Union City: caring adults attune to the differences and potential of all students engaging them in exciting ideas that honors their minds and hearts.

No secrets here.

Students First?

I'm suspicious of defensive claims that sound like proclamations.  Think Fox News which harrumphs being "fair and balanced" but in reality is neither. Michelle Rhee's organization Studentsfirst sparks a similar reaction. Some may recall that Rhee resigned as Chancellor of the Washington D.C. Schools following a high number of erasures on standardized tests from wrong-to-right answers. While there was no investigation of Rhee's hand in the statistically implausible change in scores, a cloud surrounds her supposed successes there. Rhee is not unlike many of the neoliberal educational reformers who think the best way to improve schools is to topple them and start over with market-based solutions. Their naivete is striking as they fervently abide the role of heroic crusader out to save the children while brandishing the torch of reform, oblivious to the complex and arduous task that is school improvement, while regarding all who stand in their way as belonging to the educational equivalent of the Flat Earth Society. So I approached the release by Studentsfirst with a little more than mild trepidation.

The State Policy Report Card, 2013 is a survey of states around three pillars: (1) Elevate the Teaching Profession, (2) Empower Parents with Data and Choice, and (3) Spend Wisely and Govern Well.  It should not come as a surprise that most states did poorly, as there were no As in the class of 50 pupils and two-thirds of the states received a D or F.  High scores go to states like Florida, Louisiana and Indiana for their "bold reforms" in linking student performance and teacher evaluations, rescinding and/or restricting teacher tenure and insuring teacher effectiveness. The assumptions of the criteria, however, are based on unfounded beliefs that effectiveness and test performance are tightly wedded and that linking teacher evaluation to test scores is the holy grail of reform. The fact that these scores (even when they are accurate and not doctored to make a district look better) do not reflect the quality of learning going on in a classroom is lost on single-minded reformers.  And, as my colleague Aaron Pallas offers in his recent public letter to President Obama, "There is no consistent evidence to date that linking teacher evaluations to student test scores results in better student achievement in the long run."

There is a disturbing parallel between the rhetoric of educational reformers like Rhee and advocates of austerity measures in our globally recessed economy: that either without evidence or in defiance of evidence to the contrary, they continue to herald their solutions as the best ones. Paul Krugman's piece in today's New York Times is a must-read on this count.
 

An Open Letter to President Obama

Here's an open letter I published to President Obama in anticipation of his second term:

Moving Forward: What are the qualities of the best teachers and how are they prepared?

Part of an open letter to President Obama and Secretary Duncan

By William Gaudelli

Now that the election is over, the question looms:   how do we move forward with respect to schools? First, we need to reimagine schools for present and future social and economic realities; second, we need highly qualified, professional teachers who embrace this work; and third, we need to commit to high-quality teacher education to develop the profession while supporting the growth of current teachers.  

What types of classrooms are most appropriate for current social and economic realities? Classrooms are still characteristic of an early industrial age that sought uniformity, linearity, lock-step progression, and static knowledge. While at the University of Chicago around the turn of the 20th century, John Dewey (who later joined the Teachers College faculty and became a leading intellectual and philosopher) went seeking movable furniture for his and his wife Alice's Lab School, rather than the chair/desk combinations that were often bolted to the floor. The furniture maker indicated that if they were not bolted down, they wouldn't be school desks. This iconic image of students sitting in rows, listening to teacher lectures, reciting notes, and memorizing facts is as deeply emblazoned in the national psyche as it is counter-productive to our economic viability.

Too little has changed with respect to how learning is understood and engaged. Recent reforms that organize curriculum around competencies, require student inquiry, employ online resources and social media, build-in collaboration among students and invite creativity and personalization go a long way towards shifting from a national/industrial model towards a global/information mode of education. Ramping up initiatives to support this way of learning would do much more than rearrange the furniture of schools; it would reorganize how we think about the work of our nation's schools in keeping with a rapidly changing world.

What are the characteristics of a highly competent teacher for these types of learning environments? First and foremost, she must be committed to personalized instruction that recognizes each student's learning style and abilities. The one-size-fits-all style of education that wasted so much human potential in the industrial era will no longer suffice. Rather, we need to recognize and value the unique possibility of each child if we are to achieve national progress. Second, this teacher must herself be an inquirer, someone alive to the possibility of learning about her field of practice, her content area, and her community of learners. Encouraging her students to use evidence-based approaches to learning will reap the benefits of being a highly engaged, intellectually curious teacher. Third, she must be able to collaborate and see the value in this democratic practice, both as a professional with her colleagues but also among her students. Effective cooperation is required, not optional, in today's and tomorrow's schools.

Most important, quality teaching needs to be measured by the performance of students. Any discussion of teaching must consider the learners, and that if something was not learned, it was by definition, not taught. This has been a welcome change in educational discourse and policy lately. But we also have to be careful that the indicators of performance are not so narrowly conceived as to miss much that was learned. 

How do we prepare teachers for a changing educational landscape? Teaching is bedeviled by a dual reality. On the one-hand, it is a massive profession of some 7.2 million members in the United States that has a high attrition rate, particularly in the most challenging schools.  On the other hand, effective teaching is a highly demanding, time-intensive activity, both in the preparation and development of skilled educators and in their support while in the field. High quality teacher education needs to identify and cultivate a large pool of applicants, particularly in high-demand fields such as mathematics, special education, TESOL, and science, while providing candidates with an outstanding experience.

Such teacher education should include rich, field-based experiences working with highly innovative and committed teachers who are identified as masters of their craft. The schools in which candidates learn to teach need to be environments that embrace diversity, support equitable opportunity and encourage innovation and personalization with technological support. Higher education institutions, in partnership with these schools and teachers, should provide intellectually challenging course-work to support teacher candidate development as well as those of their mentors. The latest research and scholarship generated by HEIs should serve as the intellectual backbone of this preparation. 

We can move forward in reshaping schools to meet the demands of the 21st Century, identifying and supporting teaching for these reconfigured schools and providing a firm foundation and launching point for teacher candidates in high quality, research-based institutions of teacher education.  This is the task ahead, and it is my hope that we will rise to the challenges.

The views expressed in the previous article are solely those of the speakers to whom they are attributed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the faculty, administration, or staff either of Teachers College or of Columbia University.

US in Decline?

I enjoy reading how the US is viewed from beyond and within its border, even when the outlook is somewhat bleak, which is what intrigued me about this Der Spiegel article sent to me by a colleague.  In "Notes on the Decline of a Great Nation" there is some compelling information about how the US is reeling from Hurricane Sandy due to beleaguered infrastructure. After losing power in my house for over a week, it would be hard to argue with this assertion. And one can't help but notice lackluster infrastructure comparisons when traveling in Europe and Asia. Some of what's discussed in the Der Spiegel article resonates for sure.

Yet, what happened in the election and the past few years suggests some remarkable trends, ones that would be unthinkable in the US that I experienced as a child. Some of the markers of progress are truly remarkable: three states voted by referendum to allow same-sex marriages, the first black President was returned to office having passed a universal health care policy, and women will represent a fifth of the members of the new Senate. It's hard not to see these changes as substantial progress, particularly when viewed from a left-leaning perspective common in much of Europe. Of course there is a lot that remains to be done, including infrastructure, providing high quality education for all children across the lifespan and having the US more globally-minded. But it is difficult to sustain the argument that the US is in decline when changes like these are underway and embraced by a majority of those in the US.

Hurricane Sandy and Global Warming

I've been meaning to post this for over 10 days but only yesterday got power back in our New Jersey home.  You can see from the picture of my neighbor's yard how bad the damage was here and it was many times greater at the coast.

The devastation of this storm was immense, one of the largest and most disruptive that the East Coast has seen in recent years, perhaps ever. Climatologists have demonstrated a link between the intensity of tropical and extra-tropical storms and global warming, though these headlines seem to pass in a frenzied news cycle without changes in policy.

Some bright spots amidst this upheaval is that people are beginning to talk openly about how global warming will reshape the world that we live in, quite literally.  Mayor Bloomberg of New York City, in a surprise move at the end of last week, endorsed President Obama's reelection on the grounds that he would be more likely to do something to address this problem than his challenger. And in light of this catastrophe, reports from other regions that are beginning to address the rise of sea levels, from The Maldives to The Netherlands to Norfolk, Virginia.

Clearly a lot of work remains to be done, but perhaps the most crucial aspect is educating the public, in schools, via communities, and through media, about the urgent need to address this problem in coordinated and sustainable fashion.

Who Can Do Teacher Ed?

The bevy of reforms that are underway in US education is difficult to track. They are happening with breakneck speed as they promise to reconstitute education in a short span of time. The reforms includes: teacher evaluation reform, tenure overhauls, external teacher certification processes, common core standards and soon-to-be-launched performance assessments of those standards. All of these reforms spring from a common rationale/problem: global economic competitiveness requires that US education be brought up to an international standard. There is lots to disagree with about this agenda, its roots and its assumptions. I'm working on an article now that does that and will share it shortly.

In the meantime, one of these reforms hit home to me in a jaw-dropping way this week. I was on a panel testifying on behalf of Teachers College about the development of new ways to think about teacher education. Also on the panel was Shael Polakow-Suransky, Deputy Chancellor for NYC's Department of Education. In his remarks, he asked the panel to give DOE authority to license their own teachers. Gotham Schools picked up the story.

What I did not have time to say on the panel is that is right in the sense that teacher education has a legacy of insularity in is relationships with schools, one that many of us working in teacher education are trying to address. The failure to recognize local knowledge of teachers, administrators and school personnel, and honoring the worth of that knowledge, is obviously a mistake.

Yet, most government bodies have limited capacity for engaging in this arena alone. What may occur is a superficial categorization of effective practice that fails to engage student teachers in the thoughtful, provocative and critical work of learning to teach.  No one knows what would happen if this change were to be implemented but the danger of having it be a quick and easy fix that only makes matters worse is real.

The irony of what is happening to teacher education is that US schools are supposedly reforming to make student learning more thorough, deep and engaged. Shouldn't the education of this generation of teachers be the same?  How would one learn the value of such a way of thinking about knowledge not having experienced it oneself?

The need for partnership on this issue is key as neither should operate without the support of the other. But I am concerned that in the hyper-global, get-it-done-yesterday culture of educational policy reforms, the baby is likely to join the bathwater.

[Note- The  views expressed herein are solely mine, not those of the institutions with whom I am affiliated.]

Heart-wrenching Story from Pakistan

Malala Yousafzai, the 14 year old Pakistani girl that was known for protesting for the right of girls to be  educated, was shot by Taliban rebels after being pulled from a bus.  This is really a tragic story one that really moved me as I was reading the paper this morning.  If there's a silver lining in this dark cloud it may be to encourage support for the education of girls in Pakistan and beyond, but there is no undoing the terrible violence perpetrated against this tenacious young woman.

Our hopes for recovery go out to Malala.

Holocaust Educators from Poland

My colleague Abby Reisman and I spent some time with Holocaust educators from Poland, part of the US State Department Visitor's Leadership Program this week. Participants represented various roles in schools, including school heads, curriculum directors and ministry officials. The conversation was wide-ranging, beginning with an overview of Holocaust education in the US (from our admittedly limited perspective) followed by some discussion of issues that arise when planning and teaching this grave historical period.

The previous day they had visited the US Holocaust Memorial Museum which surprised some of them.  They noted how the museum seemed to extract the Holocaust from the events of World War II and were surprised by the pairing of this atrocity with others, such as the Atlantic Slave Trade. Too, the interpreter for the group also raised concerns about the way that concentration camps are associated with Poland, rather than being referred to as German camps in Poland or Occupied Poland. The issues raised, ones that were not on our radar as we prepared for the talk, were great reminders of the value of international exchanges.

We also shared an interesting tangential conversation about teacher education and the significant restraints that we experience in the US.  In explaining that our program is a one calendar year program of teacher education, there is so much preparation required that we are unable to robustly address all topics that one might expect to find, rather relying on students undergraduate education for this exposure. Our guests were somewhat surprised by this but even more amazed that there are teacher education programs that receive equivalent status while having approximately five weeks of instruction. These challenges are significant given the expectations, in New York and beyond, that teachers are fully prepared to engage topics as difficult as World War II and the Holocaust, but that is the reality that we currently face.

It's about the [global] economy, stupid!

 

Just finished watching the Obama versus Romney Presidential Debate and couldn't help but recall the famous line from Clinton's 1992 campaign, modified just a bit.  There has been a strange separation of the national economy from the global one, as if they were distinct, embraced implicitly by the candidates, the Commission and the media.  The only memorable global angle in the debate raised by either candidate was the outsourcing of jobs (Obama) and the financing of U.S. debt by China (Romney).

Both candidates missed an opportunity to reframe the national conversation about economic lag in terms of what is happening globally. Romney chose to gesture towards the sale of U.S. securities to China, but missed an opportunity to demonstrate his grasp of the mutual significance of this economic relationship. This made his claims sound amateurish.  On the other hand, Obama failed to reframe the conversation about what is happening in the U.S. to the economic downturn that is occurring to a stunning degree in southern Europe and just now emerging in China and the rest of Asia, making it seem as though the U.S. is solely independent in terms of the economy.  Romney's position is naive and Obama's incomplete.

What struck me most about the candidates is despite the rhetoric of moving into the 21st Century, neither adequately demonstrated their bona fides as to their grasp of how the domestic/international dichotomy has lost some of its explanatory value, how we really live in a global economy. And we would have all been better off to learn more about how what's happening Shanghai and Chennai is directly impacting labor, education, technology and the economy in Seattle and Cincinnati. This may be asking too much of American national politics currently, but I doubt this will be sustainable for too much longer.