Archive for April, 2008
« Previous EntriesArt and Culture: A Natural Connection that Builds Understanding
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
This week students are turning their focus to Cultural Competence. What better way to learn about and appreciate the values, skills and practices of another culture than to look at the art produced by its people?
Art has always played an important role in shaping and recording cultural history and lifestyles. Art also plays an important role in making kids happy and comfortable in school. I know that for lots of kids, the opportunity to create art can help engage him or her in school, and open a door to learning across disciplines.
Recent visits to some schools in Portland make it clear that art is happening in the schools, but for some kids (kids like I used to be) there is never enough art in a day.
Here are some ideas for strategies that teachers and mentors (especially in after school programs) can use to stimulate interest in other cultures, while also providing opportunities for students to see and experience many forms of art.
Bring samples of art into your space. Bring objects, slides, photos, posters, fabrics. You get the idea. For example, a unit on African art might include masks, wood carvings, beadwork, jewelry, fabrics and more. Any of these can become a starting point to open a conversation about both the art, and its uses in its culture.
Talk about what you see, ask:
- What are these things used for?
- What materials are they made of? Where do these materials come from?
- Are they part of every day life or are they meant to be displayed in a museum or a temple?
Teachers may want to pose some questions as research. Invite kids to visit the library, explore books and art sites on the internet, and talk to family and community members to find out what they know about African art. Then, encourage them to share what they’ve learned - in words, or by creating a piece of art.
Mentors (and of course, teachers too) may want to take advantage of parents or other community members to take part in the conversation, and share some of their favorite art as well. :
In the course of a conversation about African art, kids may learn that in most African cultures art is used to express religious beliefs, to teach behavior, to communicate history and to proclaim an individual’s status in the community. What about art in other cultures?
RESOURCES
There are so many wonderful resources to help you bring Art and Culture into your classroom or program; you may find your biggest challenge deciding where to begin. Here are two reall good ones:
Global & Multicultural Resource Center
The centerpiece of the World Affairs Council’s statewide K-12 program is the Global & Multicultural Resource Center. Housed at Portland State University, the Center enhances international and multicultural education in both schools and the community. Our resources and programs are available to teachers, students, parents and organizations in both Oregon and SW Washington.
Be sure to check out the Culture Boxes provided by this program http://www.worldoregon.org/more/education/resources.php
“Our Culture Boxes on over 90 countries are brimming with maps, lessons, and hands-on treasures from musical instruments and traditional clothes to toys, games and easily transportable props. A typical box or set of boxes contains:
Books, lesson plans, maps, audio/video tapes, posters, CultureGrams, files, newspaper clippings, AND hands on items in the following categories: food, shelter, daily life, arts & crafts, dress, beliefs, toys & games, music & dance, language, and more…”
For more information on our Culture Boxes, Reference Library and programs, please see our website: www.worldoregon.org/more/education/index.php
Donations to the boxes from your travels are more than welcome!
Multicultural Lesson Plans
Art based lesson plans written by teachers. These are great recipes for success.
TELL US:
What do you do in your classroom or program? Share your ideas for projects and resources on this blog?
Topics: Resources for Teacher, Culturally Competent, Things to do, Resources for Mentor | No Comments »
Things to Do - made simple and inexpensive and FUN
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Mentors need ideas for things to do - inexpensive, fun and interesting. This totally fills the bill.
DO YOU KNOW OF OTHER LIBRARIES THAT OFFER SIMILAR PROGRAMS? OTHER FREE RESOURCES?
PLEASE POST THESE TO THIS BLOG - thanks
Cultural Pass to Adventure at Beaverton City Library
Each Cultural Pass to Adventure is available for a one-day check-out from your local Washington County library. You must pick up and return the pass to the same library.
Each pass provides free admission to the destination of your choice. Some restrictions may apply. Check with your library or each destination for further details.
Check out the Cultural Pass to Adventure at your local WCCLS library. (Not all passes are available at all libraries.) Use the online catalog to see which passes are available now.
Follow these easy steps to plan your trip to adventure:
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Reserve a pass for your selected venue and date by stopping by the Circulation Desk at the Library or by calling (503) 644-2197, option 1.
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On the day of your adventure, bring your library card to the Circulation Desk and check out the pass.
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After your visit, return the pass to the Beaverton City Library. If the Library is still open it’s best to return the pass to the Circulation Desk but after-hours returns may be made to BCL drive-up book drops located on the east side of the Library.
Destinations (click for more information)
A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village
Children’s Museum
Chinese Classical Garden
The Japanese Garden
Oregon Sports Hall of Fame
Pittock Mansion
Portland Art Museum
Rice NW Museum of Rocks & Minerals
Washington County Museum
BCL subscribes to most passes that are available through the program. Each pass provides free admission to the destination of your choice but there is a $10.00 charge if the pass is returned late. You must be at least 18 years old to secure a pass and some restrictions may apply. All passes must be checked out at, and returned to, the Beaverton City Library on the same day the pass is used.
Topics: Resources for Teacher, Quality Time, Resources for Mentor | No Comments »
Getting to Know Kids
By Jenn Frederick | Monday, April 21st, 2008
Things that I can do to help me get to know the kids I work with:
1. Students write about themselves as a reader and a writer at the beginning of the year, which helps me ascertain their confidence and perhaps level of expertise
2. Talent show within the classroom: students showcase skills other than academic
3. Check-in: a time to talk about the weekend, share highlights and lowlights, and acknowledge successes outside the classroom (in sports, for instance).
4. A Mandala essay at the beginning of the year asks students to think about the things they most value in life and create a beautiful mandala with symbols to represent those things.
5. Free choice book clubs, where each student chooses whatever book in the whole library that is appealing to him/her. It’s interesting to see what they choose to read.
6. Free writes on broad topics, with the understanding that they can use the topic as a starting place or just write whatever comes to their minds.
I’ve used all of these to varying degrees in my classroom. I certainly don’t know all my students well; some of them manage to avoid sharing anything personal even given all these opportunities. But most of my students have volunteered information about themselves beyond the classroom, and I keep a record of what I learn in a word document. I don’t refer to it often–the act of writing usually cements such details in my mind–but it is good to have such a record in a permanent place.
Topics: How to Help | No Comments »
Now what?
By Jenn Frederick | Monday, April 21st, 2008
Now I know that MANY of my students exhibit some of the warning signs of dropping out. Poor attendance, poor grades, disconnected from school, uninvolved parents…those are the conditions we are trying to change at Pauling Academy. One way we try is by teaching through expeditions and investigations, which are in-depth (6-12 weeks) studies of high interest topics. Attendance should improve if we can interest them in what we’re studying at school. Another way we’re trying to change things is by having student-led conferences 2xs a year. We get 85% of our parents to come in and hear about what their students are doing, and we’re very proud of that, but that kind of involvement doesn’t seem to last throughout the year. Some parents, however, do feel welcomed during that initial conference, and show up via email or in person to help direct their kids’ academic progress.
An Observation Form that would work for my classes would have only two criteria: frequent absence and low grades. That net would catch about 30 - 40% of my students. But now that I recognize them, what do I do? How can I help them stay in school?
Now what?
Topics: How to Help | No Comments »
Say it OUT LOUD
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Saturday, April 19th, 2008
A meeting with Ockley Green principal, Joseph Malone, this morning yielded (among other things) this great idea. It’s called the Student Strength Journal. Mr. Malone says that providing opportunities for teachers to describe and share with other teachers and staff the strengths that they recognize in individual students often has surprisingly positive results.
This is a great example of a way to build Level 2 relationships (in Lesson 3 of the course) – it’s a way to pass on some of the benefits (knowledge and caring) of the relationships you may have nurtured in your circle of kids. Its also a great way to pass on positive information that others who may also work or interact with this kid, may not know, but should. It is also a way to begin to capitalize on the students’ natural resources.
Make a list of strengths – at Ockley Green they keep the list in a journal for all to see. Acknowledging each kid’s strengths and abilties, and taking the time to speak them out loud, is a way for everyone who works with the kids to see them in new and often brighter ways.
Try this: “Did you know that James has a real ability to draw … that Marci is a whiz at calculating math problems in her head … that Lili works very well with kindergarteners … that Enrique can sing in two languages … that Bill has a wonderful sense of humor?” Now you do. Pass it along.
By the way, this is a great activity for any peer group – recognize and acknowledge the strengths of your coworkers, invite kids to recognize the strengths they see in the kids they know. Tell someone something good about someone - say it out loud.
Topics: Relationship Strategy | No Comments »
Dropout information
By Jenn Frederick | Thursday, April 17th, 2008
I’ll have to do a little research to find the drop out rates for my school and district, but what I know from professional development is that kids with poor attendance in their freshman year end up dropping out. It sounds like a “duh” statement, but I have a graph on my wall that depicts the curve very well. About 82% of kids who miss between 0 and 4 days a semseter will go on to graduate, but only 62% of kids who miss 5 - 9 days graduate. And these are predictions based on FRESHMAN attendance! I teach freshman, and I see how important it is to help them catch up when they’ve been absent, and make them feel welcome in the classroom after a long absence.
Topics: Dropouts | No Comments »
5 Biggest Reasons Students Drop Out
By Jenn Frederick | Thursday, April 17th, 2008
5 Biggest Reasons Students Drop Out
1. Falling behind in schoolwork, cannot catch up
2. Lack of parental involvement in life & acadmics
3. Drugs
4. Job
5. Become a parent
I teach 9th grade in Portland Public Schools.
Topics: Dropouts | No Comments »
Marc Freedman @ the City Club (and recorded broadcasts)
By Karen Jones | Friday, April 11th, 2008
I attended the City Club of Portland’s Friday Forum today to hear Marc Freedman talk on “How Boomers Are Inventing a New Stage of Life and Work,” a subject I am paying more attention to these days.
He gave an engaging talk–nonstop for about 30 minutes, without notes, lots of stories and stats–but the starting point was a study showing the enormous differences in indicators like dropout rates and drug use between kids that had Big Brothers/Big Sisters and a comparison group that did not. Great result, but his focus was on the “service gap” and the huge number of us approaching traditional retirement age who would like to find purposeful engagement after a “first career,” and the disconnect in bringing these two things together.
Freedman is an advocate of policy changes to support individuals in “Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life” (subtitle of his book Encore), which often involves transitions from private sector to nonprofit work. He has founded several organizations related to these ends; visit http://www.encore.org/
City Club Friday Forums are recorded for later radio/CATV broadcast; visit http://www.pdxcityclub.org/forums-events/friday-forums.php for the schedule. I believe OPB keeps them available for a little while online, and recordings can also be purchased.
Topics: Resources for Mentor | No Comments »
Oregon Dropout Rate Climbs
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Thursday, April 10th, 2008
This morning’s Oregonian headline reads Oregon Dropout Rate Climbs. The article states that 8338 students quit school last year before graduating. 8338 students! No matter how you look at that number, that’s a lot of drop outs. Taking this idea further – if 8338 dropped out, how many more are at risk of doing so in the near future?
So, what can we do about it? The Oregonian article did have some answers. If you are on this site, you probably have a major clue to at least one solution, but its nice to see that we have the right idea when we point out that the most important thing we can do to help keep kids in school is as simple as this - make connections, reach out, build relationships.
This clearly works at Century High School in Hillsboro. Century has an 80% Latino population, “the ethnic group with the highest dropout rate”, but this school’s drop out rate is only 1%! So how do they do it?
Primary among the things that adults at the school do is “monitor teens constantly and step in within days when a student skips school or shows other warning signs.” Administrators and counselors reach out to kids, ask how they can help, offer counseling about the future, find ways to settle conflicts. In other words – they form and maintain relationships with students.
They also reach out to families, offer help to depressed teens, provide reading help, and make it easy for students to catch up on credits.
To read this article, Oregon high school dropout rate increased in 2007
For the latest Oregon Graduation Rate by Group statistics (just what you need to know in Lesson One) click here
To read Portland schools among the worst with dropout rates.
Let’s start talking about this.
In your opinion, and based on your experiences, what do YOU think will help reduce the drop out rate in your school, program or district. Share your stories and your ideas.
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Topics: Dropouts, In The News | No Comments »
my motivation
By Kevin Truong | Thursday, April 10th, 2008
*one night in 1981 my mom got in a fishing boat.
it was rickety i’m sure. i imagine the wood was rotting, the paint was flaking, patterns were left as the coating began to peel, and chip, and crack. the swelter of the south east asian heat. by any standards, not a safe vessel. it had a motor, but definitely not anything any rational minded person would feel safe using for a voyage across the south china sea. but, funny thing, when you’ve spent the day hiding in tall grasses, waiting for the night, the dark, about to flee a country–a life, the only life you’ve ever known–rationality tends to be trumped by fear, fear by desperation, and desperation by the only way to make it through it all–hope.
so my mom, with two young daughters and pregnant with me, got in that fishing boat with a couple dozen other refugees and headed out into the water. headed out towards that hope.
* and i’m thinking at that moment, i really didn’t have a care in the world. i was twenty-four years old, about to move to new orleans, spending a couple june weeks on a cadamaran sailing waters off the coast of hawaii, it’s pretty nice to have the luxury of believing you can do anything you want in life. i looked over across the water, and all i could see was ocean. nothing but ocean. “life’s pretty amazing,” i thought.
* but all she could see was ocean. nothing but ocean. a week and a half in a rickety fishing boat, the wood rotting, the paint flaking, patterns being made as the coating continued to peel, and chip, and crack, and all she could see was ocean. terrifying. terriying when you’ve been on that boat for a week in a half. drifting somewhere in the water between vietnam and the philippines, or maylasia. too sick to eat. two young daughters begging for food. not that there was anything to give them. pirates stole all the rice and the motor off the boat. and i’m not talking the friendly, jack sparrow, pirates of the carribbean type of pirates.
*and to be quite honest, i was a little bummed. sitting on the paramount studio back-lot, somewhere between the beaches of malibu and the theatres of sunset blvd, and for some reason i missed that casting call for pirates of the caribbean 3. the guy next to me–both of us extras for the new christopher walken flick–he got casted for it. he got to see keira knightley. and i missed the chance. “man that sucks,” i was thinking, ”that would have been a great opportunity and i missed it.”
*an opportunity. and to be sure, she was beginning to question whether it was all worth the risk. the opportunity to immigrate to america–was it worth it, to be drifting somewhere in the water between vietnam and the philippines, or maylasia, for the better part of two weeks. there had to be doubts. that hope had to have been beginning to peel, and chip, and crack. she looked out. and all she could see was ocean. nothing but ocean. and then land. she could see land and she began to cry.
***
that’s the story of my mother. inter-sliced with stories from my own life. a contrasts in the extreme danger my mother took in immigrating to america, and the luxuries that have been afforded to me because of that risk. i was born not too soon after she fled vietnam, after she got in that rickety fishing boat. in a refugee camp in malaysia, august 3rd, 1982. lived there for only eight months, before spending a childhood growing up around the mud puddles and fir trees of oregon, and then a young adulthood ‘exploring’ zipcodes outside 97236. and having been fortunate enough to have been raised in this country, for almost my entire life, it’s easy for me to mistake my circumstance as something that just is–something that just happened, not meriting much recognition because it’s just been a given that i really do believe i can accomplish anything i want in life.
but nothing just is. my life–the opportunities i have been given–every door that has been opened for me and every window cracked, are things that have been fought for. it’s all a testament to my mother, a woman who went through so much just to get me to this country, to give me opportunities, to save me from the desperation and fear she felt in a life she once had.
and that’s what motivates me. the conscious acknowledgement of every opportunity that has been given to me, not just by mother, but by everyone in my life who has ever contributed in some way to the person i’ve become. how my life is and how my life could have been, and most importantly, how my life can be. i’ve made a commitment to make good on all the fortunes i’ve been given and do my best to not just to take, but to give as well. because i know that to do otherwise would in many ways be a spit in the face of everyone who’s ever took the effort to love, care, and support me in the hopes of what can be.
if my mom can get in a rickety fishing boat, i can take some risks too. and i will 
Topics: Recommended reading, Mentor Stories | No Comments »
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