Archive for April, 2009
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By Danielle Miles | Saturday, April 18th, 2009
I am currently working in an After School Program for kids in grades K & 1. Because parents pick kids up at various times throughout the day, field trips (unless they are in walking distance) are not do-able. However, after discussing it with my Co-teacher, we have decided to do a fundraiser for the Heifer Project.
The Heifer Project is a charity that raises money to give animals- such as cows or chickens- to impoverished communities. Community members then benefit from the milk and eggs the animals provide, and can even sell them to generate community income.
We will start a unit on how families in other economic situations will be given ongoing benefits from their Livestock. They will also be learning the skills of caring for Livestock.
Here is my initial list of jobs kids could do: I will let kids choose their jobs, but will help guide them to a good fit. We will continue to brainstorm and add to the list.
Everyone- take information home and share it with family, neighbors, and friends. Look for people willing to sponsor or partner with us.
Job: Creating a poster like a thermometer to show progress toward our financial goal
Job: I will collect checks and write down amounts donated. Someone will: add up amount weekly and fill in Thermometer.
Job: Present our weekly donations to the class.
Job: Write a letter to go home in our weekly newsletter about the project.
Job: Draw pictures to go in our weekly newsletter about the project.
Job: Write a letter to a local business asking them to sponsor our project.
Job: Write thank you letters and draw pictures to send to Donors.
Job: Visit the School Library and look for Read-aloud books on families in poverty, impoverished nations, Livestock, anything that they feel applies to our project.
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Demi- Creating a Positive School Environment Reflection
By Danielle Miles | Saturday, April 18th, 2009
When I was working as a Skills Trainer, I found so many Middle School students to be very guarded about their personal lives. At this age, they are more likely to seek advice from friends and to resist seeking out help from adults as they assert their independence. Often, those early conversations were incredibly difficult, in that the kid did not want to talk to me. Over time, many kids gradually opened up, and some were happy to talk from day one. Some kids preferred to talk to a certain Teacher, E.A., or School Counselor over me because that person resonated with them. Sometimes, the trick is not needing to be the person they build a relationship with so much as helping them find someone they want to work with.
I had such an enormous case load I would have to randomly pick a few kids for the purpose of this list. I will pick a kid who has been very resistant to all efforts by School staff to build a relationship. This kid is a 7th grader who was first jumped into his gang at age ten. He keeps a stony face and will often clench his jaw and stare tight-lipped away while you talk to him. To make writing about him easier, I’ll call him “L”. Even though I left my position in January to return to school, we still meet once a week.
We have found a starting place. There is an alternative high school called Portland Youth Builders. If a student gets into this program (like all social service programs, it’s budget allows a limited amount of applicants), they receive a High School Diploma while learning a trade skill- often carpentry- and get paid for their work, as though it were a part-time job. Students must show up on time and call in if they are going to be sick. They also must keep their attendance up. This program appealed to L because he has not been living the life of a child for many years, and does not appreciate being treated like a child while at school. He comes from a very low-income family, but has no employable skills and does not want to work in a Fast Food Restaurant. He liked the idea of being treated like a working adult, receiving an income, and learning a trade. The beauty of this program, in my opinion, is that L would be the first person in his family to get a High School Diploma- opening all kinds of doors for him to leave his life of gang-involvement. The program would also help him to create a new peer group and move away from his current one.
With the ultimate goal of being accepted into this program, we set a goal of attending school 4 out of 5 days a week, and raising all his grades to C’s. This may not sound like a high expectation, but even making this change would require a dramatic change on L’s part. It is a challenging but reachable goal that will serve as a foundation to continue to build upon.
Our Action List:
1. Meet weekly and talk- continue building out relationship and trust.
-continue looking for areas of interest to L, like working on cars, to discuss
-see about taking L or a group of kids to RHS to see the Automotive Classes and maybe get a chance to work, if teachers allow.
- Build a partnership?
2. Review L’s attendance & grades and encourage him to stay focused on the goal.
Support and offer help with homework, transportation, etc.
-If L should ever feel open to discuss more personal issues, show empathy and build trust
(letting him know before hand that I am mandated to report acts of violence if I hear of them, or I could lose my job and possibly be prosecuted for withholding such information)
3. Visit Portland Youth Builders to make the possibility a reality- look for contacts at PYB to work with.
4. Look for peer group L could possibly be friends with- groups that have enough support in numbers that L won’t drag any of those kids into gang-affiliation, but who would offer an alternate friend group for L
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Is it too late?!!?
By katelmoore | Friday, April 17th, 2009
Right now I’m at the National High School Journalism conference and the issue of hope is very real for me. Last week I had an awful teaching experience that really made me question if I’m cut out for this. It was certainly not my worst teaching moment ever, but it was a doozy. Today I am surrounded by awesome amazing teachers who have done this hard, hard job for 30+ years, “flunked retirement,” and come back to mentor new teachers and encourage them. Without my journalism mentor teacher I know I would have quit a dozen times this year. Which really speaks to me about the need for hope and encouragement in our students lives. If I didn’t believe, every moment of every day, that every kid can learn, succeed, and live a successful life, I would think that I had perversely chosen my calling. A long time ago I went to hear Howard Zinn speak. If you’ve never read his book, “A People’s History of the United States” you may not know that it is a recitation of the historical horrors of our country that are not generally included in your average text book. After the lecture, an audience member asked Dr. Zinn how he remained so positive and hopeful in the face of reporting such horrors.
Dr. Zinn answered, “There is always hope. Each one of us is like a man throwing pebbles into the river to try to change its course. We never know which pebble will do the job, we just have to keep throwing them.”
We never know which pebble will turn the course of a student’s life. I, for one, never want to stop just one pebble short, even though sometimes my throwing arm, and my soul, become weary.
Topics: Inspiration, Mentor Stories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
HOW NOT TO TREAT PARENTS
By Tobi Kibel Piatek | Friday, April 17th, 2009
This list of tips for how NOT to deal with parents, is a compiled from the lists developed by students taking Making Connections as a credit course. Their thoughts are too good NOT to share.
DON’T
• Tell a parent what you think they did wrong
• Talk to a parent about their child in front of other children or adults
• Fail to return emails or phone calls from a parent in a timely manner
• Have a school wide activity, including family members, and not have translators present.
• Forget to invite a parent to help out in class, help or volunteer in any way.
• Pressure parents to do more than they can i.e.; donations, fundraising, or volunteering.
• Judge a parent without really knowing the whole story, or let your own biases get in the way.
• Make a curriculum totally divorced from the realities of students’ lives (i.e. don’t teach the literary canon to my students!)
• Forget to explain expectations clearly to parents and students
• Forget to tell everyone about any and all resources available to them.
• Give up on calling/emailing a parent
• Forget to translate communication (in as many languages as you can)
• Cater only to the dominant minority; we have a student whose mother only speaks a little-known Pakistani language, and we can’t just give up because we only have a few language translators in the district. We need to make connections in the community and find someone who can help us! (And we did, by the way).
• Assume that because someone is a minority that it means that they will need help with their English or with communication.
• Make breakfast a “kids only” event; invite families, too! This worked at Atkinson Elementary in Portland; families ate breakfast, met staff and teachers, used a lending library. It worked so well, it created a ‘ripple effect’ of parents attending.
• Allow previous experiences with families to influence your thoughts about how they will be in the future. First impressions aren’t everything and remember that every single person has bad days and good days.
• Spend all of your time talking about what the student needs to improve, remember to talk about the things they do well too.
• Listen to negative messages from other teachers etc. about kids or families. Make your own judgments
• Focus on all that may seem negative in the child’s character. Instead add to the conversation the things that the child excels at or enjoys doing.
• Be too pushy
• Let the impressions of others color what you see with your own eyes
• Do most of the talking, instead ask questions and try to learn from families, as well as kids.
• Assume! Always take the time to really find out what is going on for a child and their family.
DON’T ASSUME:
• Parents don’t care.
• All children are the same in manner, learning ability, or perception of things.
• Because a family is a minority that they have no culture capital or comprehension.
• All children work (or don’t work) outside the home.
• All parents’ feel comfortable reporting trouble at home.
• All minority parents will react badly to unfavorable reports about their child.
• A family is a minority that it means that they take pride in or live with their culture. They may have adopted the same lives as thousands of other Americans. Or, they could have been born here and never explored or experienced any type of culture from where their family originated from.
• Minority parents or students are willing, able, or even knowledgeable about what we perceive to be their cultural background. In fact erroneous requests can be seen more as insults than embracing of cultural difference. It is a classic case of “judging others by the color of their skin” when we seek to do just the opposite.
DON’T FORGET:
• Children and their families have lives, ideas and values, too
• Each child comes to school with a different story (and often, a different set of responsibilities.)
• To be respectful in every situation … with parents and children.
• To ask for help.
• That your co-workers have great ideas and can offer a lot of help when you are stuck.
• That all parents want the best for their child.
• Parents have busy lives as well.
• To focus on positive things of the child.
Topics: Creating a Positive, Family Involvement, Relationship Strategy | No Comments »
Who Drops out?
By tbraun09 | Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
My 5 biggest reasons for why kids drop out of School in my district
I work with a 5th grader in Tigard, OR
1. Lack or complete absence of parental support/supervision.
2. Lack of Self-Esteem.
3. Learning disabilities (i.e. ADHD-Difficulty concentrating resulting in a lack of interest in classroom topics)
4. Insufficient community programs offering after school activities for both the body and mind.
5. Getting a job too early to earn money for themselves and/or their family.
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Why kids drop out
By ck-night | Monday, April 13th, 2009
The five biggest reasons why I think kids in my district are dropping out:
no interest in education
lack of parental support
lack of support from school officials
family issues, (neglect, abuse, drugs, pregnancy)
behavioral problems
(This is for grades 9 thru 12 in the Portland School District).
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
what I’ve learned
By kcortez | Monday, April 13th, 2009
What I’ve Learned.
You have to be aware of so much in a classroom. How the students participate, attendance, family issues, being too hard or too easy, keeping expectations clear, etc. I find it unbearable the number of students that drop out when they are so close to completion. And yet I find it hard to understand that schools actuaklly push these students out for lack of participation and test scores. I recently witnessed this happening to a student. Because he was unmotivated and of legal age the school expelled him and left him with no hope of returning to school. He is from a military family and moved frequently.
I found it believable that poverty encourages drop outs and drop ous are likely to live in poverty.There is no big chance to make it with out education.
I learned that drop outs are likely to be:
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unemployed
-
living in poverty
-
in prison
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on death row
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on public assistance and
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single parents of drop outs.
The percentages we read about it makes it clear this is an epidemic and we need to become proactive in leading the fight against educational drop outs.
Katherine
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What I’ve Learned
By Danielle Miles | Sunday, April 12th, 2009
My Original List:
1. Significant difficulty at home
2. Lack of Parental support
3. Lack of strong connections/relationships with School staff (School support)
4. Disciplinary Problems (had been expelled, suspended, put on probation for attendance or grades)
5. Do not feel safe at School
Later I added:
6. Students feel they are too “behind” to catch up (homework, credits, many absences)
7. Working a significant number of hours at a job for income
8. Pregnancy
9. Substance Abuse and Addiction
For the most part, there was not much that surprised me as I have been working with youth who have been identified as being At Risk of dropping out. However, I found the following information while doing research for the first reflection:
“According to the Oregon Dept. of Education, the following are the top reasons students dropped out of school in Oregon during the 2005-2006 school year:
- 1,274 students said they felt too far behind to catch up.
- 794 lacked parental support.
- 696 cited working more than 15 hours a week.
- 645 quit because of a dysfunctional home life.
This information helped me to get an idea of the prevalence of each issue.
I have seen the effects of generational poverty first hand, and how difficult it is for children to break the cycle. They will not be capable of breaking out of poverty unless they are given resources that their parents often cannot give them. They will need to see the benefits of education, and learn certain skills for success at school that many other kids take for granted. Also, many parents of students in low income households do not have as much free time to read with their kids or help them with their homework, as they might work long hours or several low-paying jobs in order to provide for their families. I was pleased to see some of these issues addressed in this section.
Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Who Drops Out?
By Danielle Miles | Sunday, April 12th, 2009
I found an article on KATU.com about the School District I have been working for, entitled “Is Reynolds High School really a Drop Out Factory?” (October 30th, 2007). I will paste some informative excerps:
“Reynolds High School in Troutdale is a “dropout factory,” according to a Johns Hopkins University study commissioned by the Associated Press. Dropout factory is the term used to describe schools where less than 60 percent of students continue into their senior year.”
“According to the Oregon Dept. of Education, the following are the top reasons students dropped out of school in Oregon during the 2005-2006 school year:
- 1,274 students said they felt too far behind to catch up.
- 794 lacked parental support.
- 696 cited working more than 15 hours a week.
- 645 quit because of a dysfunctional home life.”
I also found a summarized statement from Terry Kniesler, former Superintendent of the Reynolds School District, in Meeting Minutes of the School Efficiency and Quality Advisory Council at seacinfo.org. Kneisler described the problems facing the Reynolds School District in 2004.
Excerp:
“Terry Kneisler described the issues facing Reynolds School District…
• Rapidly changing demographics.
o Increasing poverty rates
o 55% of students receive free and reduced lunch program.
o 4% increase in free and reduced lunch program this school year; 18% increase
since 1999.
o Increasing challenges related to food, shelter, healthcare, and mobility due to
economic conditions.
o Increasing amount of staff time, particularly counselors, principals, health
assistants, and school secretaries connecting students and families to human
service providers.
o Human service providers are experiencing financial hardship at a time of
increasing demands. ”
I also found a statistic on schoolmatters.com that 56.9% of Reynolds students are “economically disadvantaged”.
It was fairly easy to find these statistics, but I was not able to find more current ones. I have heard the Vice Principal of Reynolds High School give updated statistics on our district demographics, which I cannot recall specifically. I was not surprised at these findings, as I have seen these demographics as I have been called in to work with students at several schools in our District.
Topics: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
When does the problem start?
By Danielle Miles | Sunday, April 12th, 2009
Why Reynolds’ Students are Dropping Out
Original List:
(based upon my work with At-Risk Youth in the district)
1. Significant difficulty at home (Dysfunctional home life)
2. Lack of Parental support
3. Lack of strong connections/relationships with School staff (School support)
4. Disciplinary Problems (had been expelled, suspended, put on probation for attendance or grades)
5. Do not feel safe at School
Expanded List:
1. Significant difficulty at home. A dysfunctional home life can negatively affect a students’ ability to focus on school and make things like doing homework less of a priority to them.
2. Lack of Parental support. It is difficult for a teenager to find the intrinsic motivation to succeed in school if their parents are not interested in their success at school. If parents feel school is less important than other things, the student will likely not make school a high priority. Sometimes, parents will ask older students to stay home from school to watch younger siblings or to do other chores. These things will often cause the student to disengage from school.
2b. Few or no relatives have completed high school. As this course pointed out, the student may not see the benefits of a diploma or degree, or they may feel they are not personally capable of achieving one.
3. Lack of strong connections/relationships with School staff (School support). The Silent Epidemic stated that Students in large, urban, public schools are more likely to drop out. I have observed that one effect of large public schools are that the teachers and staff are not able to form many quality relationships with students, which often results in students feeling isolated rather than part of a community.
4. Disciplinary Problems (such as being expelled, suspended, put on probation for attendance or grades). Often, a very negative experience of school disciplinary action causes students to feel isolated, unsupported, and less engaged in their school and education.
5. Do not feel safe at School. Many students cannot succeed in school because they have experienced threatening or truly dangerous behavior around school.
6. Students feel they are too behind to be able to get caught up. This includes school work, credits, and attendance.
7. Working a part or full time job. Due to economic situations, many families cannot fully support their teenager financially and may even rely on them to bring in money for the rest of the family. This pressure may feel or be more of an urgent concern than finishing high school.
8. Pregnancy. Due to social expectations, many pregnant teens may not feel comfortable staying in school while pregnant. Additionally, the student may not know how to access Federally subsidized child care Programs in order to return to school after their child is born, or they may wish to stay home with their child while it is young.
9. Addiction. Addiction disrupts life dramatically, and many teenagers (as well as adults) will not be able to focus on school while they are abusing a substance or in recovery.
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