Why Have Homework?

Several recent studies on homework have been nothing less than, well, inconclusive.  Studies seem to show that:

1. Older youth benefit more from homework than younger youth
2. Lower income youth benefit less than their wealthier peers
3. Some homework is beneficial but excessive homework has diminishing returns
4. Quality homework – that is, homework that creatively expands a student’s understanding of material covered in class – is better than drill and kill homework
5. There are homework benefits that cannot be measured such as learning how to work independently or manage your time better.

When I first read that lower income youth (our population) tend not to benefit at all from homework, I was puzzled at first.  Of course I then realized (and later research backed me up) that low-income students lack many of the tools needed to complete homework never mind actually benefit by it.  There is often no quiet place to study, no computer or Internet available, no parent to help.

On this last point, I thought about how I handled homework with my own son.  When he was in elementary and middle school and early high school, I was always aware of what homework was due and when.  We talked about time management (particularly during that ever difficult 8^th to 9^th grade transition) and often about how to approach assignments.  I was editor and coach. Fortunately by 10^th grade, he worked fairly independently (maybe the work got too hard for me?) and I was relegated to an occasional editing assignment.

My son always excelled in math and would agonize over endless, repetitive math assignments that were nothing but busy work for him.  Each year my son and I would visit with his math teacher and work out different homework assignments to challenge him more. Who came up with assignments?  I did.  With many assignments, I would try to discuss with my son, the relevance of his studies to our world or his interests. How did percentages relate to baseball, fractions to cooking, history to what was happening in Israel or Sudan, etc.  Yes, it is easy to see why homework done in an environment where educated parents can elevate the quality of the assignment and encourage independence and critical thinking would produce more benefits.

We find that at CyberSpace, students don’t understand the material and proceed to “bang out” homework that is incomplete, hastily done, and largely incorrect.  We correct the homework and make sure it is understood.   Often the students don’t understand the assignment and cannot articulate it to us.    Because many of our students are English Language Learners in mainstream classes, assignments are not easily understood even when written on the blackboard.  We appreciate the teachers that have clearly spelled out assignments with associated rubrics on a handout.  Without these we are often left to guess at what the assignment might be.

At Salem CyberSpace we spend 4 hours per day helping middle and high school students do homework assignments.  Eight years ago, we started out emphasizing enrichment activities but the student angst of getting homework done made us shift our emphasis to become a drop in homework center firstwith enrichment  activities available only when there was time.

As an after –school homework center,  I do see the value of homework. Our students definitely need the reinforcement of concepts learned at school.  Some repetition is valuable but only once the material is understood and I do see diminishing returns when assignments get overly long and repetitive.  If I did have one wish is that assignments could be made more relevant to the student, perhaps linked to a career or other interest.  For example, rather than drilling and killing 30 percentage problems, have students select from baseball, shopping, or crime and come up with 10 ways percentages are used – have them come up with their own problems in an area of interest to them.

With more financial and human resources,  I would prefer to have emphasize enrichment and homework equally. Not one at the expense of the other.  All students could benefit so much from more academic enrichment that contextualizes their learning.

We like to say that we act as a second set of parents at Salem CyberSpace.  I wish I had enough staff to work individually with each child to excite them about learning, show them the relevance and importance of understanding the concepts that seem so meaningless and out of reach to them.  Most of our older low-income students lack access to academic help after-school.  For many, the benefit of homework is minimal and maybe even harmful.  Clearly this is yet another example of playing field that is nowhere near level.

Career-Education Linkages – Part 3

In Part 2 of Career-Education Linkages, I discussed the need for high schools and colleges to teach performance skills in addition to academic core subjects. Across all the growth sectors in our regional economy, the jobs will require more than technical or academic knowledge.  This jobs will require performance skills such as communication and critical thinking and, finally soft skills such as customer service and work ethic.

An Intel executive asks one of his managers how his new intern is working out.  Well, the guy says, he seems to have all the technical skills we need but he can’t seem to get to the next step without direction. He is always asking me what to do next.  He is a guy I can’t rely on to identify a problem, talk to his peers and then come to me with solutions. This is what I need.  So what this new employee is lacking is performance skills.  This is the ability to identify the problem, collect data, synthesize as well as analyze, think critically and find solutions.  Intel bases it hiring decision on performance skills (60%) and technical skills (40%).  This rating system assumes technical skills can be taught while performance skills are difficult to acquire once you are in the workplace. The presumption here is that students need to be taught these skills during their education journey and arrive at the job ready to practice them.

Listen to some of the questions that are asked of college graduate applying for jobs at Intel – could you answer these?

Careful listening and effective communication

Can you think of an instance where your skill in listening helped you communicate better?

Goal-setting

Think of a development goal you set and how did you make and monitor your progress

Project Management, Leadership

Tell of a time when you inspired an individual or group to excel on a project

Tell of an instance that you changed an opinion after receiving new information

Describe something you developed that had to be right and how did you test it

Describe an instance when you used survey data, library research, or statistics to define a problem

Collaborative

Tell me a time when you thought you knew the solution but chose to solicit other opinions

These themes were reinforced  by the Superintendent from the Pentucket School District.  This district recently revamped their entire curriculum away from MCAS test prep to one that is experiential and reflective where students took ownership, were pushed outside their comfort zone and were provided multi-faceted support from staff and faculty. It was a curriculum that emphasized communication, collaboration, thinking and creative exploration. It was project-based with extensive rubrics to make sure students were covering all academic core areas.  What happened their MCAS scores in the absence of “teaching to the test”.  They, indeed, went up  as did the student’s engagement in learning.

This type of learning cannot start in the workplace or even in college.  It must start in our K-12 schools. I know we ask our schools to do a lot above and beyond common core curricula but changes in our economy , in part caused by globalization, mandate that these changes be made.  Schools can effectively partner with community organizations and businesses to provide these additional  performance skills in combination with a learning model that develops  critical thinking and problem solving.

This concludes the 3-part series.  The main points that you should take away:

1. 50% of our students are disengaged from learning because they find it boring and not relevant to their lives
2. For those 50%, we must offer different learning models that ties learning to today’s jobs.  This could be expanded quality vocational schools or extracurricular programs or internships in partnership with the business community to provide those linkages
3. Learning should encompass project-based learning that emphasizes critical thinking and problem solving
4. Finally, schools must partner with the broader community to create these linkages.

 

 

Career-Education Linkages, Part II

Sorry, it has taken me so long to get Part 2 up on the blog.  Running a non-profit program is not easy these days. With a constant hunt for money, planning for growth, assuring quality of programs, recruiting students, staff and volunteers, I don’t seem to have as much time to keep the blog up to date but I promise to try harder.

In Part I of  Career-Education linkages, I talked about the forgotten fifty – the 50% of our kids that do not go on to any post-secondary education (38% here in Essex County).  I discussed these students’ disconnect with an education that seems irrelevant and boring.  This segment of disengaged teens could be re-engaged in their education if they could relate what they learn to what they do or hope to do.  So Part II talks about where the jobs will be here on the North Shore of Massachusetts as a way to inform our schools on where some of our educational resources might be focused.

You have to have your head in the sand if you have not read the increasing number of news articles about our high-tech and bio-tech manufacturing companies that can’t find trained employees to do the higher paying jobs. What! 7.8% unemployment here and they are not lined up to do the jobs?

At a recent meeting with the President of Salem State University and several leaders of the tech industries, the discussion centered around the need for the colleges to step in to help train students for the highly skilled jobs of today and tomorrow.  This will require schools to invest heavily in new equipment, maintain faculty that is trained on only the most current technology and have the willingness to focus human and financial resources on technical education in addition to liberal arts.

So where are our growth industries?  Here on the North Shore, the predominant job areas include health care, construction, durable manufacturing, retail, financial services, hospitality and food services. Growth areas are in health care and life sciences.  Most of the jobs in these sectors require some college.  The jobs that require some post-secondary education have changed in the last 30 years.  Since 1973, the number of jobs available to high school drop outs dropped from 32% to only 11% – this reflects the drop in unskilled labor in our manufacturing sectors (note these are national numbers).  Jobs available to High school graduates also dropped from 40% to 30%. Jobs requiring some college more than doubled from 28% to 59%.  Notice the category, some college, no degree – this was a category that did not even exist 30 years ago – this category reflects certificate and apprenticeship programs.

In the North Shore WIB’s 2010 regional jobs blueprint, they report that the bulk of the jobs that will be opening as the recession eases are what they call middle skill jobs, those requiring an associates degree or certificates.  Middle skills jobs are lab techs, medical techs, assistants, nurse assistants, manufacturing and engineering technicians. Across all the growth factors in our regional economy, this report emphasizes the need for technical and technology skills as well as foundational skills in core academic areas as well as performance skills such as communication and critical thinking and, finally soft skills such as customer service and work ethic.

So for the jobs that will be opening up here on the North Shore, we need to prepare our young people for some post-secondary pathway – certificate/apprenticeship, 2-year degree or 4 year degree. In addition they need solid foundation skills, technology skills and performance skills.

The WIB Blueprint estimates that middle skill jobs will represent 45% of the job openings but only 32% of the population today holds the skills to perform those jobs.

There is tremendous opportunity for more tech education at high school and community colleges. It may even be a space that 4-year colleges may want to venture in to as part of its adult education programs.

The challenge, of course, will be to avoid tracking students one way or the other and to eliminate the stigma associated with vocational tracks.

Career-Education Linkages Part 1

I am starting a 3-part blog on linking education with a clear career path. Why?  A large percentage of our students are disengaged from learning.  Nationwide 50% of our kids do not go on to any post-secondary education (38% here in Essex County, MA), there is a growing gender gap showing boys significantly lagging in education, and an alarming percentage of remediation in community colleges and high public college drop out rates.

Teen employment is at its all time low.  While the current recession has definitely taken its toll, the trend has been distressingly down over the last 30 years. Only 28.6% of our 16-19 year olds are employed down from 51.6% just 10 years ago.  And, it is particularly alarming amongst our low-income, minority teens (9.2% and 15% employment for black and Hispanic teens, respectively) who, by the way represent the largest growth sector here on the North Shore.

Why should we care so much about teen employment? Teen employment:

1. Establishes important adult relationships and mentoring opportunities – social capital
2. Increases engagement in learning
3. Reduces the drop out rates
4. Prepare students for post-secondary and the workplace

Drops outs are more likely to go to prison, have babies out of wedlock, go on welfare and access more social services.  The average dropout contributes about $300,000 less to society than the average high school graduate.

Now I love learning and I know that even the myriad of articles and books that appear far removed from my day to day life,  all learning helps you as a person to better understand and engage in the world around you.  It builds vocabulary, critical thinking skills and takes you outside your comfort zone. And, I suppose, I figured that with my magical powers I could turn every kid into learning machines in the same way I was.  I guess it has been a long path for me to realize that for many, learning can appear to be irrelevant and, yes, boring. In fact, this is the most common reason students cite for dropping out.

These students see no clear connection between their schoolwork and tangible opportunities in the labor market. So this brought me to look more closely at workplace to school linkages.  There is some compelling evidence from programs in other countries and some innovative programs here in the US that shows if you link education with a work/career pathway for the forgotten 50, it not only makes the learning more relevant, it can feed the interest and passion of the student and it can provide important performance skill building (which I will explain in the next blog) as well as academic skill-building.

In a study on vocational education completed last Sept, the authors point out that school learning is abstract, theoretical, and organized by disciplines while work is concrete, specific to the task, organized by projects and problems and are cross-disciplinary.

Work-based learning is a credible, proven alternative education pathway for many youth who are disengaged from learning,  and at risk for dropping out, for our forgotten 50.   In the next blog, we will take a closer look at where the job growth will be coming from and what education is needed for those jobs.  In Blog 3 we will take a look at skills other than academic skills that our youth need to be productive members of our labor force. So Stay Tuned.

References used for these blogs include:

•Pathways to Prosperity, Harvard Graduate School of Education, February, 2011

•Learning For Jobs, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Sept. 2010

•A New Era of Education Reform: Preparing All Students for Success in College, Career and Life, Rennie Center, October, 2010

• North Shore WIB, Labor Market Blueprint, Oct, 2010

March Madness and College Graduation Rates

I just cannot get into the madness that envelops the NCAA basketball championships or for that matter any major or minor sporting event. Sportsmania, sports worshipping, couch potato-spectator sports, fantasy sports – you name it, I just don’t get it.   Pickup games, intramural, youth-run leagues without parents or adults – those I do get because those are adults and kids who play sports because they love it. They don’t need uniforms or parent adulation – they just want to play because it is fun and it is healthy. So what does this have to do with education?

In a recent Sunday Boston Globe article (“Put Obama in the Game”, March 20, 2011), Derrick Jackson wrote about the abysmal 2010 graduation rates for NCAA teams.  What I found most interesting was not the pathetic schools whose team or black player graduation rates were less than 60% but the many schools who managed to graduate 80% or more of their players and still be NCAA competitors.  And, we are not talking Ivy League – we are talking about schools like Arkansas-Little Rock, N. Colorado, Marquette, North Caroline, Penn State, Utah State and many more.  These bright spots in higher education prove that a school can remain competitive and still maintain high scholastic standards.

At the high school level, some schools are also beginning to set higher expectations for its scholar-athletes. Recently one of our students who was doing poorly in school failed to make the baseball team because he was failing more than 1 class.  Well, that is a step in the right direction but had that student been getting all D’s and maybe failing one course – well, that would be ok?  Huh?  I think that you can use sports to take students to a higher level.  Perhaps you could let them on the team for practices but in the first year, they stay on the bench if they don’t improve their grades and tutoring would be mandatory for anyone getting a grade less than a C.  Don’t withhold a sport as punishment, use it as an incentive. Sports coaches have an unbelievable opportunity to influence and motivate their players.  Ken Carter (on who Coach Carter was based) not only took Richmond High School to a championship but held all his players to an academic standard.

There is a serious and growing gender gap in education. Boys are falling way behind girls in academic achievement. Let’s use sports to narrow this gap, not widen it.

If you know of high schools that have successful policies that use sports (and coaches) to improve their players’ academic performance, please write to me. I am looking for some more bright spots. We need them.

Introducing the New Salem Community Charter School

February 28, 2011

Today the Massachusetts Board of Education approved the charter for the Salem Community Charter School.  This is a Horace Mann Charter which means it is an in-district charter school.  Unlike a Commonwealth Charter (such as the Salem Academy) which is totally independent of the public school district, the Horace Mann Charter is approved by the local school committee and by the local collective bargaining unit (i.e., the teachers are still part of the teachers’ union).  However, the Horace Mann charter is governed by its own Board of Trustees independent of the school committee.  It is indeed a strange beast!  This hybrid charter derives its charter and funding from the local district and school committee approval BUT its decisions are made by its own Board which do not require School Committee approval.

The new Salem Community Charter School (SCCS) is a school targeting youth who have dropped out of school and youth at high risk of dropping out.  The school is truly student-centered meeting the student where he or she is at. What does that mean?   SCCS will provide flexible hours to accommodate students who need to work or have childcare issues and offer a small, supportive learning environment, individual education plans allowing students to work at their own pace, extensive career and college planning, and many available wrap-around social and therapeutic services.

The school will be small with only 4 faculty members double-certified in either ESL or Special Education.  Teachers  and staff  will work collaboratively with the principal, be empowered to offer up innovative approaches and be much more closely involved with the students and their families providing each with individualized plans and lots of counseling and mentoring.

SCCS, has the opportunity, in a way traditional public schools do not, to be quite innovative in its educational practices.  Unlike most High Schools, students will not be required to be in school a prescribed number of years or earn a prescribed number of credits. Each student graduates based on their ability to demonstrate competencies in the core subject areas.  There will be more involvement with families as well. Finally, there are a large list of non-profits including Salem CyberSpace, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCA, Children and Friends, NSCAP, Salem State, Salem Police, WIB and many more who have agreed to provide services to the students and their families to assure the issues that students and their families face will be dealt with so that  student will graduate.

While virtually all students who consistently attend Salem CyberSpace will graduate high school, we do see many teens who wander in and out of CyberSpace often just to sit and talk but rarely willing to do any homework, get tutoring or engage in any enrichment programs.  Yet they sit and observe as if they want to find something to latch on to but don’t quite know what or how to do it.  I have talked to them about this new school and for many their eyes light up and say that maybe this kind of school would work for them.  I am not a Pollyanna about this and realize that problems and distractions stemming from poverty, family violence or neglect, socio-emotional issues, and drugs,  will make learning so impossible for some youth.  However, I really believe that SCCS can make a difference to a majority of these kids who have disinvested from the public school.

If you know any students who might benefit from this new charter school who are living in Salem and are between the ages of 16 and 21 on September 1, 2011, please encourage them to attend one of two information sessions on March 9 at Salem CyberSpace and March 10 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church from 7:00- 8:30 PM.

College Success

 

In today’s (January 30, 2011) Sunday Boston Globe,  Lawrence Harmon wrote an Opinion piece entitled “The Transition Coach.”  This article talks about a Boston Foundation-funded program, Boston Success, that places college coaches into the community colleges to help students coming for Boston Public Schools navigate college. The goal of these programs is to improve college retention, particularly for students who are first in their family to go on to post-secondary education.

The article correctly pointed out that the real solution lies in fixing the high schools to assure students are more college ready. However, what the article does not point out are the many obstacles that have absolutely nothing to do with academics that throws roadblocks in front of these youth every year. Let me discuss a few.

First of all, those familiar with Salem Cyberspace will know that we have been providing these services for 3 years now  through our College Success program and are also seeing 90%+ retention rates so programs like these do work (other programs that provide college coaches include Bottom Line in Boston and Posse Foundation).

Lack of academic readiness is an issue and over 40% of Salem’s students who attend public colleges must take remedial classes in math and/or English.  Students requiring academic remediation are significantly more likely to drop out.  However other issues provide barriers to college completion:

1.       Finances – student s forget to reapply for the FAFSA funding; get behind on interest payments for non-subsidized Stafford Loans; can’t afford books, laptops or lab/art supplies.

2.       Working too many hours – often as a result of their finances, most urban college students at public colleges work and many work over 20 hours per week.  It is a vicious circle – they need the money to pay for transportation, books, etc but the hours interfere with student’s ability to study.  They fail more classes causing them to stay in school longer and pay more money. Also by being off campus more than on campus deprives these students of some of the real benefits of college living.  In fact, students who live on campus,  get more engaged in the college and tend to have much lower dropout rates. Many of our students must give money to their families to pay rent, put food on the table and most of our students have to pay for their own cell phones, transportation and daily living expenses.

3.       Health – we are finding our students do not have regular check-ups and do not hand in immunization records resulting in the colleges blocking their ability to register for classes.  For our female students, many have never been to a GYN.  In addition, MASS Health will drop dependents when they reach the age of 19 (not poor people did not benefit from the new Healthcare Reforms that allows children on private health plans to stay on their parents’ plans until  age 26).  We guide them through applying for either MassHealth or Commonwealth Connect as independents.

4.       Family stress – almost all of our students live at home. Homes lack quiet and private places to study and many of our students are required to provide care for younger siblings or cousins. This is in addition to the hours they work.  There can also be a lot of family drama that prevents students from being able to focus on school work.

I should also point out that most, if not all, public colleges have the taxpayer-funded federal TRIO programs which also provide the wrap-around social services and tutoring services that these college coaches provide. Unfortunately, there is much more need than there are TRIO counselors, and that why there is need for privately funded college coaches.

At Salem CyberSpace we work collaboratively with the TRIO counselors as well as Student Support Services. We also include the parents, if necessary, although once in college we do work very hard to get the students to work through their own problems with our guiding hand.

There is a need for more programs like this. With programs like Boston Success (Boston only) and Bottom Line (Boston and Worcester only), Boston students get a lot of services (although, I am sure many more coaches are needed).  But what about the smaller cities like Lynn, Salem, Gloucester, Brockton, Framingham, Lawrence, etc.?  There is woefully little funding for programs like these.

I want to thank the Amelia Peabody Foundation, the Tomfohrde Foundation, the City of Salem (through CDBG funds), the Settlement Partnership, the Norman Read Foundation and Clipper Ship  for providing funding for this program.  However, even with this funding the program is underfunded this year by $20,000.  This program is very important and we are committed to funding this program completely for this year and are talking to possible new funders.  If you know of anyone interested in college success programs, call Linda Saris at 978-740-6667.

 

It Is Time To Update Our High School Reading Lists

Have you ever tried to read a book in a language other than your native language?  In college, after 6 years of middle and high school French and having spent a summer in France, I decided I would take a 20^th century French Literature course — in French, of course. We read such easy page-turners as Madame Bovary (Flaubert), Man’s Fate (Camus), No Exit (Sartre) – you get the picture. It was painful.  Armed with a French-English dictionary, it took me forever to navigate one page of text and at the end I had no idea what I read.  These books represent the best of the best in French Literature, required reading for students in France. However, for a foreign language student in the U.S. this experience killed any desire I had to read anything more in French. This was a college elective, so it was my fault for taking it in the first place but I only mention it to elucidate the point that reading in a foreign language is daunting and reading literature with so much advanced vocabulary and abstract thought, makes reading an almost impossible chore.  So let’s take a look at 9^th grade English through the eyes of an English Language Learner (ELL).

Many of Salem CyberSpace’s students in ESL 2 and 3 classes are placed into mainstream English (same course as native English speakers) in addition to their ESL class giving them a needed double dose of English.  Being in a class with native English speakers is a great idea and I believe it advances the students understanding of English by forcing them to participate in a higher level discourse in this new language. However, I am sure it would not surprise you that most of my students failed or received a “D” in this course because of the content material used in the course.  For the month leading up to winter break, our students were plowing through the Odyssey. Needless to say, this was a difficult task given that it is (1) a poem, (2) uses difficult vocabulary and (3) has so many mythical and historical references that our ELL students have never studied. I have to ask myself – should students with only 2 or 3 years of English be reading the Odyssey?  The Massachusetts Education Frameworks require that 9^th or 10^th grade students “analyze the characters, structure, and themes of classical Greek drama and epic poetry”. Arguably the Odyssey is the most interesting and approachable Greek epic poem.  I have also been impressed with the help the teachers have provided the ELL students, as well as the use of the movie to help explain what is going on.  However, I would argue that the frameworks need to change in order to encourage more of our students to become lifelong readers in the English Language.  Couldn’t they be given something a bit easier, relevant, interesting to read?

Reading is by far the best way to build vocabulary, language proficiency and abstract thinking skills and we got to get our ELL students reading and discussing in English.  External and individual reading assignments are not great for ESL students as students cannot benefit from in-class discussions of the books, language, literary elements and themes.

Some suggestions might be Junot Diaz, Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, John Steinbeck, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Barbara Kingsolver (Bean Trees), and others.

I would encourage the schools to consider a contemporary English course for 9^th grade and wait until 10^th grade to meet the Greek Epic Poetry and Shakespeare requirements. I believe this would help both ELL and native English speakers learn to enjoy reading. Massachusetts will be moving to a Common Core Curriculum Frameworks which was agreed to as part of the Race To The Top grant. After a cursory reading of the Language Arts framework, I do not see the requirement to read a Greek epic poem so let’s hope English departments will take an opportunity to review its reading lists that will have a better chance of developing a new generation of lifelong readers.

Common Core Curriculum Frameworks can be found at www.corestandards.org

Navigating the Judicial System For Latino Youth

I have proudly called myself a feminist, coming of age in the 60’s with Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinham as my guides. I remember going around my new neighborhood on the North Shore after we bought our first house, raising money for the nascent HAWC, proud to be able to support a safe haven for abused women.  I stood and applauded the new legislation on domestic abuse as it got tougher due to the efforts of our citizens and legislators. And, like so many, I cry every New Years when the Boston Globe prints the list of women (and some men) who have died at the hands of their domestic partners.  Yet no laws are perfect and those appointed to enforce them are not perfect so sometimes an innocent person, a good person, gets caught up in all the well-intentioned laws and the ever increasing formulaic criminal justice system, and that good person gets hurt.  When you look at this in the abstract, from afar, you can say that the good far outweighs the bad, until…..it is someone you know and care about who is the one who gets hurt.

At Salem CyberSpace, we have had to intervene on behalf of our students when they get caught up in the judicial system. Fortunately, this does not happen frequently.  What has struck me is that these students who do not have the social capital or the financial capital to even begin to work their way through the judicial system run an extremely high risk of getting lost in it.  In the two instances we had to intervene, it was staff at Salem CyberSpace reaching out to contacts in the police, probation, and legal offices to get representation, to understand the process, to explain it in Spanish to the family, to raise the money, and to provide emotional support to family so confused and scared by what is happening.  And, even that sometimes is not enough. I have a Masters degree and it took me 4 phone calls with various attorneys to make sense of what was happening, and what will happen next and I am still not sure I get it.

And, so was the case with one of our students accused by his girlfriend of domestic abuse. For the sake of privacy I will not go into the details here, but suffice it to say, there was an argument which led to a call to the police. For good reason, the police and DA’s office take these complaints seriously. In this instance, the girlfriend wanted to teach him a lesson, cool him off, and send a message.  She did not want him landed in jail, forced to withdraw from college, lose his income and possibly his financial aid. And, most of all, she did not want him to lose his self-respect, his reach for the American Dream and his place in the community. How many people lay down the accusation of abuse, bullying, harassment, to send a message not realizing the ramifications of those accusations?  Is there anyway to protect good people from this or is this just an acceptable casualty for a much-needed protection?

One way is clearly to do more in educating both men and women not only about abusive relationships and how to avoid them but also to make sure we teach the ramifications of making the accusation, how the judicial system reacts to it and how to better make the decision when to involve the police and turn to other available resources.

I am so low right now thinking about this young man. We, at Salem CyberSpace are fired up to help him and I still trust in our system and the amazing capacity of this young man to survive and eventually reach his dream but this adds one more obstacle that, frankly, he does not need.

Yes, My Child Is Book Smart, But Does S/He Have What It Takes?

There has been a lot of talk in education circles about the failure of schools to teach 21^st century skills.  Driven by the insatiable appetite of our knowledge economy, our schools need to address the needs of employers across all sectors for employees with strong problem solving, critical thinking and communication skills.  In an age of mega-standardized testing from MCAS to SAT to Accuplacer, our emphasis on test prep is reducing the time students have to build these skills.

In addition to problem solving, critical thinking and communication, students need to develop other less tangible Life and Career skills such as flexibility, adaptability, initiative, self-direction, productivity, accountability, leadership and responsibility. Finally, and not too surprisingly, all graduate must master Information Media and Technology.  Theses were some of the conclusions of a recently published report by the Rennie Center entitled “A New Era of Education Reform: Preparing all Students for Success in College, Career and Life.” This report can be found on their website at www.renniecenter.org.

While there were many interesting examples of schools implementing new curricula to address these skills, I was most intrigued by those offered by Paul Livingston, Superintendent of the Pentucket Regional School District.  His vision for 21^st century education was implemented 4 years ago as part of a community wide effort.  Key in his vision was to develop a model that allowed teachers time to collaborate and to provide a curricula that is experiential, where students take ownership and are allowed to shape learning outcomes, that allowed reflection (so that students can adapt based on successes and failures), that pushed students outside their comfort zone and that provided students with multi-faceted support.

At Salem CyberSpace, we had already started to move in this direction so it was great to see that there was actually some theory behind it.  In our English Language Learners Program which works with low-income immigrant high school youth, we have moved to more of a project-based program.  In the prior 2 years, we focused on themes and arranged activities, games, and field trips. This year, each theme will have a 6 to 8-week project.  We just completed our first project around Halloween and Salem History. Students planned, raised funds and delivered a Halloween Party for young children in their neighborhood.

Was the party perfectly executed? Of course, not.  Their haunted house (which by all standards was magnificent) was pulled down by the Fire Department, 4 hours before the party was supposed to begin.  At 5:30 (30 minutes after starting time), not one child had arrived.  Did our kids spend all their time delivering the best party ever, and then forget to tell anyone about the party? Eventually about 25 kids did show up (after some rather aggressive recruiting and phone calling) but they were definitely expecting more. So it was not a perfect party but did they learn from their success and failures. Absolutely!  It was very hard for the staff to step back as adults and only give guidance without taking over the project but in the end the learning experience was much more comprehensive and I suspect, lasting.

We are planning 3 more projects – one project related to the environment, one project with the police and a third not yet decided.

As  the Human Resources person from Intel stated, we are not looking for employees with the highest GPA. We want students that can think, draw on resources available, and bring solutions, not problems, forward.  We owe it to our students and our country to deliver students with those capabilities.