In Thomas Friedman’s article, “The New Untouchables,” he identifies the qualities of 21st century workers that are indispensable to our global marketplace. Schools, which focus traditionally on analytical skills, will also need to emphasize the skills which employers will both demand and reward. Analytical skills, according to Daniel Pink, can be outsourced, but other skills such as thinking critically and creatively to solve problems and produce new opportunities, work effectively with people from different backgrounds and cultures, and have vision for possibilities, cannot be outsourced. It’s time that educators and parents at all levels ask:
Texting, Surfing, Studying?
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Often to the angst of their parents, many children spend time texting, watching television, listening to music and surfing the Internet –all while studying for tests and doing their homework. Based on the article below, the big question is: Can young people who have grown up with new technologies multitask more effectively than older generations, specifically their parents? “Kids are spending an extraordinary amount of time with media,†says Dr. Victor C. Strasburger, a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. “We don’t really know what they pay attention to, what they don’t. We don’t know how it impacts their school performance, whether it impacts their school performance.â€
While studies have shown a decrease in productivity among adults who multi-task, some scientists surmise that the elasticity of the brain of children and teens might be more adept at these kind of mental gymnastics, but the verdict is still out. “The literature looking at media and its impact on attentional skills is just in its infancy,†said Renee Hobbs, a professor of mass media and communications at Temple University and a specialist in media literacy.
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington mentions a digital divide, previously between the rich and poor, but now between parents and their children. “Parents are digital immigrants,” says Dr. Christakis. “We’re fairly clueless about the digital world they inhabit.†According to Harris M. Cooper, a professor of psychology at Duke, “One of the things that homework is supposed to do for us is help us generalize where we feel we can learn.†Harris offers this advice to parents: “If they’re doing well [in school], permitting them to have some choice permits them to find their own style.â€
Regardless of media’s impact on studying, students need the requisite skills to process and absorb new information in order to thrive in school, career and life. LifeBound’s Study Skills book is an effective tool for helping students develop their own best strategies for learning. To view a sample chapter and lesson plan, visit www.lifebound.com and click on books. To request a review copy of this book, send an email to contact@lifebound.com or call toll free 1.877.737.8510.
ARTICLE:
New York Times
October 13, 2009
18 and Under
Texting, Surfing, Studying?
By PERRI KLASS, M.D.
Certain subjects make self-righteous parents of us all: our children thinking they are doing homework when in reality the text messages are flying, the Internet browsers are open, the video is streaming, the loud rock music is blaring on the turntable — oh, wait, sorry, that last one was our parents complaining about us.
Heaven knows, I understand the feeling. And not just as a pediatrician. I have my own children — a high school student, a college student and a medical student — and I know the drill.
But if you ask the experts, they are pretty unanimous that we don’t know much.
“The literature looking at media and its impact on attentional skills is just in its infancy,†said Renee Hobbs, a professor of mass media and communications at Temple University and a specialist in media literacy.
To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com
Successful Schools Avoid False Choices
Today’s commentary published in Education Week by Karen Chenowith, senior writer for the Education Trust Foundation, contains broad and profound implications supported by brain-based learning and cognitive research. In her observations of successful schools who work with disadvantaged students, she writes: “they based their teaching not on a preset philosophy, or a set of program prescriptions, but on what would best help their students learn” (italics mine). People often say that everyone can learn. Yet the reality is that everyone does learn. As Prentice Hall author, Dr. Lynn Quitman Troyka, writes in the introduction of some of her books, “Thinking is not something you choose to do any more than a fish chooses to live in water. To be human is to think.”
Indeed, the brain’s ability to act and react in ever-changing ways is known, in the scientific community, as “neuroplasticity.†This special characteristic allows the brain’s estimated 100 billion nerve cells, also called neurons (aka “gray matterâ€), to constantly create new pathways for neural communication and to rearrange existing ones throughout life, thereby aiding the processes of learning, memory, and adaptation through experience. Without the ability to make such functional changes, our brains would not be able to memorize a new fact or master a new skill, form a new memory or adjust to a new environment. The brain’s plasticity is the reason it can heal itself after stroke or injury and overcome addictions. According to Dr. Norman Doidge, author of The Brain That Changes Itself: “The brain is not ‘hardwired’ from birth, but holds a remarkable lifelong power to change—a phenomenon called ‘plasticity.’ Positive or negative environments, exercise, nurture, learning, and other experiences continue to change the brain throughout life.”
Which brings us back to today’s article. The reason a flexible approach to teaching works– as this article implies–is because students aren’t a one size fits all, nor is their intelligence fixed at birth. Everyone’s brain is unique and malleable for endless learning possibilities. As the principal at Imperial High School, Lisa Tabarez, in the Imperial Valley of California, quoted in this article said: “Every single student who comes before us has the ability to learn. As educators, we must accept our daily responsibility of taking students, at whatever level and place in their lives they may be, and helping them to learn—to learn how to become productive, contributing members of our society through the opportunity of education.â€
- How can we ignite and nurture student minds and emotions to transform learning?
- How can the revolutionary findings in the field of neuroplasticity direct us to new possibilities for ‘rewiring’ the brain to help overcome learning disorders and to enhance memory, learning, and achievement in all learners?
- What are the implications of cognitive research for student success and transition programs, which seek to address opportunities and vulnerabilities during adolescence?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
ARTICLE:
Education Week
Published in Print: October 14, 2009
Commentary
Successful Schools Avoid False Choices
By Karin Chenoweth
I know I am not the first to notice that education as a field tends to get whipsawed between what seem like incompatible alternatives: We can teach phonics or surround children with literature; we can teach skills or content; we can prepare students for the workforce or for college; we can provide schools that are equitable or schools that are excellent. The examples are endless.
For the past five years, I have been examining schools that have, for the most part, sidestepped these battles. They are schools I have visited as part of my work for the Education Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit organization. The job involves identifying and writing about schools with significant populations of low-income children and children of color that are also high-achieving or rapidly improving. In many of these, just about all of the students meet or exceed state standards, and achievement gaps are narrow, or sometimes nonexistent.
To view this entire article visit www.edweek.org
Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among Drop Outs
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
A new study from Northeastern University cites that students who quit high school are 3.5 times more likely to become incarcerated in their lifetimes than high school graduates. The research also estimates a national cost of $292,000 per drop out, based on lost tax revenues and government assisted amenities and programs.The director of the report, Andrew Sum, told New York Times reporter, Sam Dillon:
“We’re trying to show what it means to be a dropout in the 21st century United States,†said Sum. “It’s one of the country’s costliest problems. The unemployment, the incarceration rates — it’s scary.â€
Among African-American males who drop out of high school–which is estimated at 40 percent–the situation is worse. Of those, 72 percent are jobless, and the likelihood of being incarcerated jumps to 60 percent, according to statistics from Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of “Black Males Left Behind” (Urban Institute Press, 2006).
One obvious question is why do students drop out? While it’s often assumed that students do so because they can’t keep up with the academic load, recent studies paint a different picture. For example, in a joint project by the Civic Enterprises and Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,”The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts,” the study found:
Nearly half of the former students – 47 percent – quit not because of the academic challenge, but because they found classes uninteresting. “These young people reported being bored and disengaged from high school,” the report said. “Almost as many (42 percent) spent time with people who were not interested in school. These were among the top reasons selected by those with high GPAs and by those who said they were motivated to work hard.”
An even larger number of students – 69 percent – said they were not motivated or inspired to work hard. In fact, two-thirds said they would have worked harder had it been required of them.
These findings underscore why schools must challenge students and prepare them for the different transitions they face. Freshmen year, in particular, is a precarious time in student’s academic future because students typically drop out the summer between their freshmen and sophomore years. If we don’t engage them at this entry point, we may lose them for the rest of their lives at great cost to the student and to society.
1) As educators, how can we provide a more supportive academic environment at school and at home that would improve students’ chances of remaining in school? What needs to be different—with students, parents, teachers, counselors and administrators—for that to happen?
2) How can we continuously challenge teachers so that they are always learning, growing and contributing to their own passion-level? If a teacher isn’t motivated, students aren’t likely to be either.
3) How can we help students discover their gifts and talents so that they can envision the crucial role that education plays in their future? When students know what they are good at, research shows they will persevere.
4) What can we do to increase awareness of the value of student success and transition programs in fostering engagement and relevance in the classroom? How can we start these classes in fifth grade so that we avoid these costly patterns from the get-go?
ARTICLE
New York Times
by Sam Dillon
On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging.
To view the entire article visit
http://bit.ly/MIGHi
Attorney General, in Chicago, Pledges Youth Violence Effort
CAROL’S SUMMARY
Chicago has been in the national and international news lately not only for losing the bid as host city for the 2016 summer Olympics, but for the tragic beating death of high school honor student, Derrion Albert, who was caught between two rival gangs on his way home from school on the city’s southside. Derrion’s murder is sparking a national conversation about youth violence. Many people compare the incident, which has been viewed by millions over YouTube, to Emmett Till’s brutal killing at the hands of white supremacists in 1955, when his open-casket funeral on television sparked the American Civil Rights Movement. Derrion was the third adolescent killed this school year. Since the beginning of 2007, close to 70 students have been murdered mostly on their way to or from school.
As the New York Times article below points out, youth violence isn’t only a Chicago problem; “it’s an American problem,” said Attorney General Eric H. Holder in his meeting yesterday with U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan, the former superintendent of Chicago Public Schools. As an admission counselor (who asked to not be identified) from another local high school on Chicago’s westside neighborhood said, “We’ve always heard of kids fighting kids, but they lived to tell about it. That’s not true anymore.”
Addressing such serious issues like youth violence requires support from many facets of society, including our school system. When former New York Times science journalist and co-founder of the Yale University Child Studies Center (now at the University of Illinois at Chicago) Daniel Goleman first coined the term emotional intelligence, he cited strong emotions as holding the potential for promoting great good in society as well as terrible atrocities, because some people use violence to release feelings of anger or frustration. LifeBound’s People Smarts for Teenagers program works with adolescents on developing self-awareness, as well as managing strong emotions. The principal at Skyway Elementary School in Colorado Springs, Patrick Webster, who used the People Smarts resources last spring told his counselor: “We have had ZERO disciplinary referrals from 6th grade this year, which is phenomenal.” In a typical time frame they would have received half a dozen by now.
As educators we need to cultivate a vision and establish a comprehensive game plan like they have in Colorado Springs for helping school communities curb violence and assess measurable goals. In addition to our resources for students and faculty, LifeBound provides programs for parents on coaching skills and other strategies so that they learn how to model the kinds of attitudes and behaviors they want their children to emulate. Children absorb how parents deal with a job layoff and other traumatic and stressful life events, and supporting parents in their roles is another effective way to stem the escalation of violence among school-aged children and teens.
For a review copy of People Smarts and more information about our programs for parents, please contact us by calling toll free 1.877.737.8510 or emailing contact@lifebound.com, and we’ll be glad to help you. Together we can answer the call to make a profound difference in our school communities.
ARTICLE:
Attorney General, in Chicago, Pledges Youth Violence Effort
By SUSAN SAULNY
Published: October 7, 2009
CHICAGO — Trying to spark what he called “a sustained national conversation†about youth violence, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. met with public school students and elected officials here Wednesday, pledging a heightened crime-fighting commitment from the federal government toward vulnerable children.
Mr. Holder, joined by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the former head of the local public schools, said the Obama administration was dedicated to being a full partner in the fight against youth violence, in part, because “too many of today’s victims become tomorrow’s criminals.â€
To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com
Parental Involvement Reaps Big Benefits
According to the Department of Education, research reveals many benefits when parents are involved in their child’s education, including:
Skills Set Drafted For Students Nationwide
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a joint effort by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in partnership with Achieve, ACT and the College Board. Governors and state commissioners of education from across the country have created a state-led process to develop a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for grades K-12.
According to their web site at www.corestandards.org, these standards will be research and evidence-based, internationally benchmarked, aligned with college and work expectations and include rigorous content and skills. The NGA Center and CCSSO are coordinating the process to develop these standards and have created an expert validation committee to provide an independent review of the common core state standards, as well as the grade-by-grade standards.
In math, the goal is to have students “solve systems of equations; find and interpret rates of change; and adapt probability models to solve real-world problems.†In English and language arts, the goal is to have students be able to “analyze how word choices shape the meaning and tone of a text; develop a style and tone of writing appropriate to a task and audience; and respond constructively to advance a discussion and build on the input of others.â€
There is still much work and research to be done if a national consensus on education is to be adopted, but one thing is certain: Students from the United States need to be prepared to compete in the global marketplace among students from Asia and Europe. With education reform inevitable, here are some important questions to consider:
· Could standards be developed by type of student? College-bound, career-school bound?
· Could we identify skills that will make students successful no matter what path they choose and emphasize cross-curricular learning?
· How can we better work with the initiatives such as the 21century skills, which foster critical thinking, technological literacy, cross-curricular core-competencies and global knowledge needed to compete with counterparts world-wide?
Whatever standards are developed, the voice of Higher Education and employers will need to be heard. Learning needs to be linked to success in the working world. To fuel our economy of the future, students will need knowledge, skills and the initiative to tackle the toughest problems with confidence, competence and faith that the solutions—while difficult and elusive—can and will come with a quality mindset and follow-through.
ARTICLE:
Skills Set Drafted For Students Nationwide
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Experts convened by the nation’s governors and state schools chiefs on Monday proposed a set of math and English skills students should master before high school graduation, the first step toward what advocates hope will become common standards driving instruction in classrooms from coast to coast.
The proposal aims to lift expectations for students beyond current standards, which vary widely from state to state, and establish for the first time an effective national consensus on core academic goals to help the United States keep pace with global competitors. Such agreement has proven elusive in the past because of a long tradition of local control over standards, testing and curriculum.
To view this entire article visit www.washingtonpost.com
Schools Official in New Jersey Orders Plan to Combat Hazing
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Bullying can take many forms (verbal, psychological and physical), and administrators for a district in New Jersey will participate in sensitivity training and devise a plan within the next two months to combat hazing at Millburn High School. These actions were ordered by the president of the Board of Education after a board meeting revealed that another school year started off with hazing of freshman girls by seniors that included being pushed into lockers, having whistles blown in their faces and the release of a “slut list.â€
In the past, some seniors have been expelled, but Principal William Miron said that no student will be disciplined without proof. Board member Debra Fox remembers being hazed as a freshman and suggested punishing the entire female population of the senior class in order to get the names, saying “because no one is going to take the rap for someone else.†One parent was applauded when she said parents must also take responsibility when their children acted like bullies.
Tragically, every day thousands of students wake up afraid to go to school. As educators, we have an inherent responsibility to make our schools safe, bully-free cultures because every child and teenager has the civil right to learn unhindered. Because parents, teachers, and other adults don’t always see it, they may not understand how extreme bullying can get. According to the web site, www.kidshealth.org, two of the main reasons people are bullied are because of appearance and social status. Bullies pick on the people they think don’t fit in, maybe because of how they look, how they act (for example, kids who are shy and withdrawn), their race or religion, or because the bullies think their target may be gay or lesbian.
Hazing is a form of bullying and often the result of underdeveloped emotional intelligence, or people smarts, such as empathy and compassion. LifeBound’s book, People Smarts for Teenagers: Becoming Emotionally Intelligent, helps students develop these skills by boosting self-awareness and empathy. Every chapter includes a real-life story about another teenager who overcame their own obstacles to emotional well-being. This past spring, a progressive district in Colorado Springs used this book with all of their sixth graders and observed a spike in test scores, which they attribute to this program. Learning is linked to emotions and when we teach children and teens emotional and social skills we give them another advantage in the learning process. For more information about this and other student success and transition resources, visit www.lifebound.com
ARTICLE:
The New York Times
September 22, 2009
Schools Official in New Jersey Orders Plan to Combat Hazing
By TINA KELLEY
MILLBURN, N.J. — The president of the Millburn Board of Education said on Monday night that district administrators would have to undergo sensitivity training and ordered them to come up with a plan within the next two months to address the longstanding tradition of hazing at Millburn High School.
The action came at a board meeting that drew about 50 parents and lasted more than three hours.
“This is not acceptable behavior; it will not be tolerated,†the board president, Noreen Brunini, said of the most recent hazing, which included the distribution of an annual “slut list†of incoming freshman girls. “This is the end of this.â€
To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com
Colleges Are Failing in Graduation Rates
CAROL’S SUMMARY: In the United States only half of students who enroll in college end up with a bachelor’s degree. Italy is the only rich country with a worse college graduation rate. In a new book titled, “Crossing the Finish Line,†authors William Bowen (an economist and former Princeton president) and Michael McPherson (an economist and former Macalester College president) analyze the data of about 200,000 students at 68 colleges.
Although the book’s statistics are alarming, there is hope. Instead of requiring a total overhaul of today’s educational system, McPherson and Bowen suggest large strides can be made if institutions shift their focus from enrollment to completion and become accountable for their failures. The first problem “Crossing the Finish Line†identifies is under-matching. According to the article below, under-matching refers to “students who choose not to attend the best college they can get into. They instead go to a less selective one, perhaps one that’s closer to home or, given the torturous financial aid process, less expensive.†To combat this, the Obama Education Department now informs students of the graduation rate at any college in which they express interest when they fill out an online form for federal financial aid.
College graduation is important to career success. According to the Labor Department, last year workers with bachelor’s degrees made 54 percent more on average than those who attended college but didn’t finish. When people, especially students fresh out of college, enter the workforce and contribute to society, everyone benefits.
What can high schools do to prevent students from under-matching themselves with colleges?
How can colleges and universities shift their focus from enrollment to completion and balance these efforts on both fronts?
In addition to implementing student success and transition programs at the high school level, what else can we do to improve our nation’s college graduation rates at public institutions?
ARTICLE:
September 9, 2009
Economic Scene
The New York Times
Colleges Are Failing in Graduation Rates
By DAVID LEONHARDT
If you were going to come up with a list of organizations whose failures had done the most damage to the American economy in recent years, you’d probably have to start with the Wall Street firms and regulatory agencies that brought us the financial crisis. From there, you might move on to Wall Street’s fellow bailout recipients in Detroit, the once-Big Three.
But I would suggest that the list should also include a less obvious nominee: public universities.
At its top levels, the American system of higher education may be the best in the world. Yet in terms of its core mission — turning teenagers into educated college graduates — much of the system is simply failing.
To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com
Md. Accelerator Schools To Speed Pupils To Diploma
CAROL’S SUMMARY:
In Baltimore, Maryland, three new accelerator schools have opened this year to helping struggling high school students graduate on time. As the article below reports, the school system has hired a consulting firm, One Bright Ray, which has also successfully established two other alternative schools based in Philadelphia. According to the Alternative Schools Project, funded in 2001 by the US Department of Education, Office of Special Education, there are more than 20,000 alternative schools in operation in the United States.
The ASCD, a national membership organization devoted to school reform, reports the national drop out rate at 1 out of 3 students and almost half for minorities. This means in a classroom of 30 freshmen, 9 will drop out, typically between their freshman and sophomore years. By the time they are 18 years old, only 10 will have the skills necessary to succeed in a job or master college-level work; 4 will be unemployed; 3 will end up on government assistance; and 2 will have no health insurance. Even more dismally, drops outs are eight times more likely to go to jail. When students are asked why they quit school, the majority say “boredom.”
What can educators do to inspire students and help them create a vision for their future?
What else can we do to not only place these students on a trajectory for success but motivate them to persist with their educational and career goals?
What can policy makers and school leaders do to establish student success and transition programs in every school so that students get off to the best start possible?
How can we best prepare students so they’re ready for the world beyond formal education?
We all pay when students don’t learn and achieve at their highest potentials. As educators and parents, we must teach students that they are important and unique and that their impact on the world is priceless.
ARTICLE
AARON MORRISON, Associated Press Writer
BALTIMORE (AP) ― Shane Smith is already two years behind in school. But as he started classes Monday at a new high school, he planned to speed through his freshman and sophomore years in nine months.
That’s a tough order for a 16-year-old who should be in the 11th grade but has struggled academically, in part due to the death of his father when he was a boy.
However, organizers of one of Baltimore’s three new accelerator schools say frequent testing, extracurricular activities and high expectations will get students such as Smith on track and keep them there.
To view entire article visit
http://bit.ly/3iJ4O