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Saturday, October 31, 2015

Border Air Quality Education - Curriculum

Here is a great resource from http://baqed.utep.edu/curriculum.htm for schools from El Paso ISD, Grades 3-8 together with high school topics, including chemical processes and analyses, smelter in the city, air pollution and vulnerable populations, and nuclear decay.  These curriculum modules are free to all.  It allows literally tens of thousands of children annually to learn about some aspect of air quality.  It has children work in concert with communities to find ways to improve air quality. All lessons are also in Spanish.

Angela Valenzuela
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Most of the schools in the El Paso Independent District are located in areas that are close to major air pollution sources such as the busy interstate highway, three international bridges with long lines of trucks going both directions delivering international cargo, a large military base, a busy airport, a large oil refinery, and a sister city of 1.5 million. Today, El Paso meets air quality standards most days, but there are still ozone-alert days in the hot dry summers, dust storms with zero visibility, and brown inversion layers that spread over the area. Master teachers in the El Paso district worked with university educators to create this curriculum that informs the citizens about air quality issues and to bring about community and personal actions to decrease the air pollution. The product is an imbedded series of learning experiences for 50,000 students and their families addressing issues that are important and relevant to this border region. We share them with all educators.
Third graders learn about particulate matter and ozone. Coco the Chameleon teaches them how to read the air quality index so they can avoid playing outdoors when breathing the air may be unhealthy. more…
Fourth graders learn about air pollution caused by burning hydrocarbons from fossil fuels. They explore what it feels like to breathe if you have respiratory problems, and they make plans to have less air pollution around their school. more… Texas is a good location for producing alternative energy – plenty of sunshine and windy plains. Fifth graders use inquiry learning experiences to explore wind, solar, and biofuels; and then make multimedia presentations to inform others. more…
Sixth graders measure temperature changes in ambient air compared to CO2 to understand the greenhouse effect and the foundation of climate change. They create public service announcements about the climate issues for the school news channel and their families. more…
Students in seventh grade use scientific data bases about cities with high air pollution levels to examine the relation between income, education, and health. They propose reasons why environmental conditions and poverty affect health. more…
El Paso is located in an area where inversions occur and a brown-gray haze often hangs over the city. Eighth grade students explore causes of thermal inversions and use data sources to find the major pollution sources affecting local air quality. more…
Using the important environmental history of the ASARCO copper smelter located near downtown El Paso, chemistry students learn how to identify sources of air pollution, the chemical behavior of these polluting compounds, and then explore options to reduce chemical air pollutants. more…
Students in Environmental Science classes examine environmental justice through the history of the copper smelter and use wind rose data to identify trends and ways that wind direction may affect air quality. They use scientific data to understand how our actions affect our neighbors in Mexico and develop solutions to improve regional air quality. more…
Watch short video about ASARCO workers visiting our high school class: https://youtu.be/iBNyGbHCI8U
SUPPORT DOCUMENTS:
Suggestions for Greener Schools lists ways to reduce energy use at your school.
Earth Day Community Energy Activity is a survey that students can use in several ways to explore how to save energy and reduce carbon production.
Smelter in the City uses the story of a copper smelter that operated near the heart of El Paso for more than a century to examine the complexities in environmental education. Includes information and activities for secondary classrooms.
Web Resources for Teachers provides quick access to many lessons, information, and opportunities about environmental education.
Air Quality Monitor Grid template to make simple air quality monitors for student use.
Map of El Paso District Schools and Zones of High PM Readings
World Health Organization Report on Air Quality
Teaching Unit on Coal
Environmental Education Guidelines for Excellence Alignment with BAQ Curriculum
Air Quality Index Chart for Elementary Classrooms
Air Quality Index Chart for Secondary Classrooms

“No History, No Self. Know History, Know Self.”

“No History, No Self. Know History, Know Self.”

This is the sign that appears on Leona Kwan's ethnic studies classroom in Oakland Unified School District's (OUSD).  It could be a slogan for the ethnic studies movement that has gained momentum across the United States, most especially Texas and California.  Although it has been inspired by the struggle over Mexican American Studies in Tucson Unified, it is a deeper, decades-long struggle that finds expression in the presence of Mexican American Studies programs and departments in universities nationwide.

To wit, many of us in Texas are organizing through our National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Tejas Foco statewide organization that hosts an annual conference taking place this February18-20, Lone Star College-Kingwood with a focus on the preservation of "traditions, oral history, customs, dichos, folklore, language, food, religion, literature, music, education, folk art, Chicana/o history and how they affect our everyday lives and identity." Simultaneously, February 17-20 the Texas Association for Chicano in Higher Education (TACHE) annual conference is also taking place with a similar focus: ¡Adelante! Latinos on the Rise: Remembering our Past, Leading our FutureA recent statewide conversation on merging the bilingual education and Mexican American Studies agenda spearheaded by Texas State University professor Dr. Christopher Milk also took place in El Paso, Texas, at the Texas Association for Bilingual Education's annual meeting.
 
NACCS Tejas Foco has become a very large, well-attended conference in Texas due in no small part to the excitement of teaching Mexican American Studies at all levels of the educational system in Texas.  While we still have to fight for inclusion at the State Board of Education level, as well as in textbooks, generally, our community doesn't have to wait for our officials to do the right thing in the meantime.  And this is what is happening in California, too.

While it is regrettable that on October 9, 2015, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill (authored by Assemblyman Luis Alejo) calling for ethnic studies statewide in California despite its support by state senate and house Democrats, school districts are nevertheless taking a lead.  In OUSD—as in San Francisco, LAUSD, Pico Rivera, and most University of California campuses—the policy only requires its teaching of it at the high school level, but encourages it at elementary and middle school levels.

This is a great piece on so many levels.  It speaks to the value of ethnic studies, generally, and specifically, to Oakland Unified School District's (OUSD) take on it: Not anyone can teach it; and it's as much about the content as it is about the authentic caring relationships between teachers and students.  This approach helps children to feel both powerful and seen.

Angela Valenzuela
c/s

Ethnic studies courses to be offered at all OUSD high schools

Leona Kwon, the ethnic studies teacher at Castlemont High School, explains an assignment to her students.
Students work in pairs, sheets of paper littering their desks. Each pair is assigned to dissect a different section of the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program. Posters of Malcom X, the Dalai Lama and Che Guevara line the walls. A wooden sign above the whiteboard, made by a former student, reads “No History, No Self. Know History, Know Self.” In this Castlemont High School ethnic studies classroom, that’s the objective: gaining knowledge of one’s history and community helps students feel more connected and empowered.
“In terms of social studies content, there is no content that is more directly relevant to students’ lives or more academically rigorous,” said Leona Kwon, an ethnic studies teacher at Castlemont. “There might be these words that are really big, like ‘institutional oppression,’ but once you explain the concept, students can understand that right away because it reflects so much of their lived experience.”
Thanks to an Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) school board vote Wednesday night, within the next three years ethnic studies classes, like this one, will be offered at all Oakland high schools. The course may count as an academic graduation credit, and though the policy does not specify the course will be a graduation requirement, the possibility has been discussed by the board in previous meetings.
According to the district’s new policy, presented to the board by Young Whan Choi, civic engagement coordinator for OUSD, ethnic studies courses create “higher overall academic achievement, boosts in social emotional learning, increases in self-efficacy, higher graduation rates, and a reduction in drop-out rates.” The policy encourages elementary and middle schools to incorporate an ethnic studies curriculum, but will only require district high schools to offer the course.
The course, a general survey that will cover the histories of many groups of people, will be piloted by a small group of teachers during the 2016-2017 school year. A group of teachers is currently updating the framework for ethnic studies that will be used by teachers to develop the curriculum for their schools.
Recently, both local and statewide initiatives pushing schools to offer ethnic studies courses gained ground. This fall, San Francisco public schools began to offer ethnic studies classes in all high schools. However, on October 9, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill, authored by Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Salinas) and supported by state senate and house Democrats, calling for the creation of a statewide ethnic studies curriculum.
For the OUSD, specific details about the proposed curriculum are not set in stone. At Castlemont, one of the few schools in the district that now offers an ethnic studies course, all 9th grade students take the class taught by Kwon, which she has taught for five years. Throughout the year, she focuses on concepts like personal identity and systems of privilege, which helps students think about how the different parts of their identities can effect their personal experiences and understand those experiences within a historical context. The course also focuses on the idea of race as a social construct—or that individuals who share a particular racial identity can be very physically diverse—and discussion of levels of oppression within society.
After taking the ethnic studies course, students “are able to place themselves within a historical context” said Kwon. “Through ethnic studies, they have such a better, more critical understanding of how society functions, both currently and historically, that is also very, very empowering.”
Michelle Flores, a 10th grade student at Castlemont, believes that her experience last year in Kwon’s classroom was key to her growth as a student and an individual. “Most people don’t know the real history. They know the dominant narrative,” said Flores. “It made me want to prove the stereotypes wrong. It made me want to give back to my community and teach my community about all the oppression that we’re going through, especially institutional oppression.”
“It just opened my eyes to the world,” said Taejin Kim, another 10th grade student at Castlemont.
“And now every time we see a Disney movie, it’s like ‘Whoa, they just said something racist there!’” said Flores.
Students from other OUSD high schools have also called for ethnic studies courses. At the October 14 school board meeting, student director Darius Aikens expressed his interest. “It gives students the ability to feel powerful,” said Aikens. “I don’t have ethnic studies at Oakland High, but I would like to have ethnic studies at Oakland High.”
One of the challenges the board has faced as it considered including ethnic studies in the curriculum at all Oakland high schools is finding the right teachers for the course. At the October 14 meeting, staffing was a main concern cited by board members. Director Hinton-Hodge (District 3) recalled the beginnings of the African American Male Achievement Initiative in 2010, a program dedicated to addressing the needs of African American students by offering an after-school mentoring program focusing on African history and culture. According to Hodge, before the program was introduced, African American students did not feel like they were being acknowledged or being given equal access to opportunities in the general education classrooms.
“Young people, young black boys, didn’t feel as though they were seen. They didn’t feel like people valued them, they didn’t feel as though that they could really learn,” Hodge said.
Hodge, who also said she was excited about the possibility of developing a system-wide ethnic studies curriculum, said she wants staffing to be carefully considered. “I don’t want to be pessimistic by any means, but I don’t want to see an investment in a curriculum when people don’t authentically care … with their heart and really love each one of our children who walk in there.”
“Not just anybody’s going to be able to teach this,” said Director Torres (District 5). “So we don’t want anybody saying, ‘Well I need a job and there’s this opening so I want to do this work.”
Kwon’s students say she is fully invested in creating a welcoming space for her students. “She’s really passionate about her job—that’s what makes her so amazing,” said Flores. Both Flores and Kim mentioned times when they missed class and immediately received a text from Kwon asking if they were OK.
Compassion like Kwon’s students see in her might benefit any classroom culture, but for an ethnic studies class, where issues like privilege and oppression are frequently discussed, sensitivity is key, Kwon says, and it is important that her classroom remains a safe space. “So much of ethnic studies is not just the content you teach, but how you teach it,” said Kwon. “It comes down to your relationships and sort of the culture you set up in your classroom.”

Friday, October 30, 2015

Bilingualism: When Education and Assimilation Clash


This piece recently appeared in The Atlantic.  There should be no clash between education and assimilation.  Bilingual education in our country is more of an issue of politics than evidence.  When well staffed, funded, and designed, it works in all the ways that we care about in terms of educational outcomes.  If anything, this "debate" has more to do with the dominant group's loss of centrality and a lack of desire to relinquish privilege.  Too bad.  There is so much to gain from a bilingual and bicultural—indeed multilingual and multicultural—world.

-Angela

Bilingualism: When Education and Assimilation Clash

Nearly one in four U.S. public-school children speak a language other than English at home. What’s the best way to accommodate ELL students in the classroom?
Stickers on the wall of Coral Way K-8, a bilingual school in Miami. Lynne Sladky / AP
With more than 20 languages spoken in one eighth-grade classroom, Harlem Village Academy West in New York City rivals the vibrant cultural and ethnic mix of the United Nations headquarters, a short trip down the FDR Drive. Spanish, Mandingo, Fulani, French, Arabic, and other languages come together to form a tapestry of nationalities. Yet unlike the U.N., the premier institution representing the peoples of the world, public schools have not always encouraged children to embrace their heritages. Indeed, as non-native English speakers, some of the Harlem Village’s middle-schoolers relate feelings of isolation as younger children solely based on their attainment of the English language.

Chelsea, a 13-year-old Spanish-speaker who learned English in the third grade, recalls her earliest years in school as especially difficult amid her struggles to communicate with peers. “I used to get mad and aggravated because I couldn’t speak English,” she says. “People were looking at me as if I were another type of human being.” Her classmates share similar frustrations. “I felt dumb and left out when we did advanced math because my teacher wouldn’t let me do it even though I knew I could,” says Yaye, a bright 14-year-old who speaks Wolof, the most widely spoken language in Senegal, at home. Yaye says he languished in his K-2 English-as-a-second-language classes, “not progressing or learning.” Melyanet, also 14, remembers feeling alienated and lonely when she was in prekindergarten—an age when children often sharpen their social skills through play. “I would try my best to learn English but it was hard,” the teen recalls. “No one spoke [Spanish] so I wouldn’t make friends. I would sit in the back.”

The adolescents at Harlem Village are part of a rapidly growing population of students in America’s public schools with diverse linguistic backgrounds. Of the 50 million students currently enrolled in public K-12 schools, almost one in four (12 million) schoolchildren ages 5 to 17 speak a language other than English at home, according to an analysis of census figures. Their numbers have inched up over the last decade, along with the percentage of students participating in English-language-learners programs. Department of Education data shows this segment of the public-school population is steadily climbing. Some 4.4 million students—ranging from those who don’t speak English to those transitioning into full proficiency—were classified as English language learners in the 2012-13 school year, an increase of more than 250,000 students over the previous decade. 

Even as states struggle to reach a common definition of what it means to be an English language learner, the proportion of these students continues to rise—and with it, the temperature of debate surrounding the purpose and goals of bilingual education. It remains an unsettled issue that continues to challenge America’s self-image as welcoming and inclusive: The value of linguistic assimilation is pitted against the values of a culturally diverse nation of immigrants, leaving education systems and its students caught in political crosshairs. The divide is exacerbated by financially strapped schools with skyrocketing numbers of English learners—meeting all of the mandates for their education can be expensive—and the national discourse on immigration, which saw the 2016 presidential contender Donald Trump advise his competitor Jeb Bush to “really set the example by speaking English while in the United States.”

Many trace today’s fraught bilingual-education politics back to the Bilingual Education Act, which was adopted in 1968 to aid local school districts in educating children with limited English. At the bill signing, President Lyndon B. Johnson voiced his enthusiasm for a law that would bring an unprecedented federal role and funds to the education of children whose first language wasn’t English:
Thousands of children of Latin descent, young [Native Americans], and others will get a better start—a better chance—in school … What this law means is that we are now giving every child in America a better chance to touch his outermost limits—to reach the farthest edge of his talents and his dreams. We have begun a campaign to unlock the full potential of every boy and girl—regardless of his race or his region or his father's income.
--> Yet bilingual education’s cultural, social, and historical dimensions date back well over a century before Johnson signed his landmark education law. In recounting the history of bilingual education, Rethinking Schools chronicles the earliest efforts to teach immigrant students. The first bilingual-education law, enacted in Ohio in 1839, created a German-English language program and was followed by similar laws in Louisiana and the New Mexico area geared around French-English and Spanish-English instruction, respectively. As the trend accelerated, more states and localities began dual instruction in an array of languages, including Polish, Italian, Norwegian, and Cherokee. The onset of World War I—and its accompanying era of xenophobia, discrimination against language minorities, and English-only laws—quickly brought this trajectory to an end. This pattern continued through the 1920s as the tension between forced assimilation and educationally sound practices continued—and as the academic performance of students with limited English skills began to suffer. The passage of the Bilingual Education Act, part of a wave of civil-rights legislation pushed through Congress by the Johnson administration, ushered in a major shift once again and a return to bilingual instruction in many of the nation’s schools. But as the Act was reauthorized in the 1980s and ‘90s and then subsumed under No Child Left Behind in 2002, national policy seesawed between prioritizing multilingual skills and an English-only focus.

Today, schools are still twisting in the wind of politics, with 31 states passing laws naming English the official language over the last two centuries and voters in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts approving ballot measures in recent decades that replace bilingual education with English-only policies. Meanwhile, a growing contingent of educators are promoting the cultivation of bilingualism to support the social and emotional needs of English language learners.

Olga Kagan, a languages and cultures professor at UCLA and director of the university’s National Heritage Language Resource Center, has studied the implications of denying students the ability to communicate in their parents’ native language. “Many of these students have no literacy in the language they speak,” she wrote in a December 2014 Los Angeles Times op-ed. “And that is a problem.”

Rather than ignoring English in the classroom, Kagan calls for capitalizing on the language skills students already have and taking their background knowledge into account. “I think the main roadblock is societal attitude to bilingualism ... We lose much of the nation’s capacity in languages by letting go of this resource,” she told me recently. And the various benefits for students are evident. Kagan’s survey of California college students found many “heritage speakers” wished to study their home language at school to connect with their culture, build their literacy, and strengthen their bonds with relatives.


Driving much of the decision-making in English-language instruction are myths that need debunking, says Rusul Alrubail, an education consultant whose work focuses on English-language learners and pedagogical practices in the classroom. “Banning [a child’s] first language often creates a negative impact ... a sense of divide for students between their first language, often used at home, and English. We see students who refuse to be associated with their first language, or refuse to speak it or acknowledge that they know it, due to them feeling ashamed ... This impacts their cultural identity.”

Among the consequences, says Alrubail, are when students internalize the notion that their first language is inferior—with English becoming the language of assimilation—and when some immigrant families specifically ask their kids not to speak in their first language at home in an effort to ensure their children conform to Western culture. Interestingly, research finds mixing languages has no impact on children’s vocabulary development. But the pressure from teachers and schools, enshrined in policy and practices, can be immense.

“Many teachers believe that in order to learn English one must assimilate to American culture and abandon one's own cultural practices,” Alrubail said. “This is always a result of fear and anxiety; when students do not meet their expectation of what it means to be ‘American,’ it becomes imperative to speak English.”

The upshot of this mindset is seen in Amadou, a 13-year-old at Harlem Village who speaks Fulani, a Niger-Congo language spoken by 13 million people in many parts of in West, Central, and North Africa. “Nobody spoke my language except in my home [so] I would only try to speak English so they wouldn’t look at me differently. I wanted to fit in with everyone else and be the same,” he says. Will his native language, rich in tradition and heritage, soon slip away as the middle-schooler slowly simmers in America’s melting pot?

Why I Am No Longer a Measurement Specialist by Dr. Gene Glass

Important read for the adherents of standardized, test-based measurement from FORMER nationally-renowned specialist, Arizona State University Professor Dr. Gene Glass.  Concise quote on why he's defecting from the field of measurement:
The degrading of public education has involved impugning its effectiveness, cutting its budget, and busting its unions. Educational measurement has been the perfect tool for accomplishing all three: cheap and scientific looking. 
The only thing that I might add is that it is important for progressives to study psychometrics so that they can critique/challenge from within.  But I totally get it that once one is in this community, it can be very seductive to the point that one can abandon one's original commitments to equity.  Not in Gene's case though.  He's simply defecting.  Check out Gene Glass' blog here.

 -Angela


Monday, August 17, 2015

Why I Am No Longer a Measurement Specialist

I was introduced to psychometrics in 1959. I thought it was really neat. By 1960, I was programming a computer on a psychometrics research project funded by the Office of Naval Research. In 1962, I entered graduate school to study educational measurement under the top scholars in the field.
My mentors – both those I spoke with daily and those whose works I read – had served in WWII. Many did research on human factors — measuring aptitudes and talents and matching them to jobs. Assessments showed who were the best candidates to be pilots or navigators or marksmen. We were told that psychometrics had won the war; and of course, we believed it.
The next wars that psychometrics promised it could win were the wars on poverty and ignorance. The man who led the Army Air Corps effort in psychometrics started a private research center. (It exists today, and is a beneficiary of the millions of dollars spent on Common Core testing.) My dissertation won the 1966 prize in Psychometrics awarded by that man’s organization. And I was hired to fill the slot recently vacated by the world’s leading psychometrician at the University of Illinois. Psychometrics was flying high, and so was I.
Psychologists of the 1960s & 1970s were saying that just measuring talent wasn’t enough. Talents had to be matched with the demands of tasks to optimize performance. Measure a learning style, say, and match it to the way a child is taught. If Jimmy is a visual learner, then teach Jimmy in a visual way. Psychometrics promised to help build a better world. But twenty years later, the promises were still unfulfilled. Both talent and tasks were too complex to yield to this simple plan. Instead, psychometricians grew enthralled with mathematical niceties. Testing in schools became a ritual without any real purpose other than picking a few children for special attention.
Around 1980, I served for a time on the committee that made most of the important decisions about the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The project was under increasing pressure to “grade” the NAEP results: Pass/Fail; A/B/C/D/F; Advanced/Proficient/Basic. Our committee held firm: such grading was purely arbitrary, and worse, would only be used politically. The contract was eventually taken from our organization and given to another that promised it could give the nation a grade, free of politics. It couldn’t.
Measurement has changed along with the nation. In the last three decades, the public has largely withdrawn its commitment to public education. The reasons are multiple: those who pay for public schools have less money, and those served by the public schools look less and less like those paying taxes.
The degrading of public education has involved impugning its effectiveness, cutting its budget, and busting its unions. Educational measurement has been the perfect tool for accomplishing all three: cheap and scientific looking.
International tests have purported to prove that America’s schools are inefficient or run by lazy incompetents. Paper-and-pencil tests seemingly show that kids in private schools – funded by parents – are smarter than kids in public schools. We’ll get to the top, so the story goes, if we test a teacher’s students in September and June and fire that teacher if the gains aren’t great enough.
There has been resistance, of course. Teachers and many parents understand that children’s development is far too complex to capture with an hour or two taking a standardized test. So resistance has been met with legislated mandates. The test company lobbyists convince politicians that grading teachers and schools is as easy as grading cuts of meat. A huge publishing company from the UK has spent $8 million in the past decade lobbying Congress. Politicians believe that testing must be the cornerstone of any education policy.
The results of this cronyism between corporations and politicians have been chaotic. Parents see the stress placed on their children and report them sick on test day. Educators, under pressure they see as illegitimate, break the rules imposed on them by governments. Many teachers put their best judgment and best lessons aside and drill children on how to score high on multiple-choice tests. And too many of the best teachers exit the profession.
When measurement became the instrument of accountability, testing companies prospered and schools suffered. I have watched this happen for several years now. I have slowly withdrawn my intellectual commitment to the field of measurement. Recently I asked my dean to switch my affiliation from the measurement program to the policy program. I am no longer comfortable being associated with the discipline of educational measurement.
Gene V Glass
Arizona State University
National Education Policy Center
University of Colorado Boulder

The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the National Education Policy Center, Arizona State University, nor the University of Colorado Boulder.

Mini-Corps program recognized by White House

I had the pleasure of spending time at Cal State University Fresno for the past couple of days that included a presentation before teachers and pre-service teachers that are part of California's Mini-Corps program.  Thanks to Dr. Laura Alamillo, Chair of the Literacy, Early, Bilingual, and Special Education Department at Cal State Fresno.

Whereas the entire Mini-Corps program in California is arguably praiseworthy, the one getting recognition was this one at Cal State Fresno led by Mini-Corps coordinators Lilly Lomeli and Jose Mejia.  Specifically, they were recently recognized by the White House as one of the 2015 "Bright Spots in Hispanic Education" initiative.  The proposal itself was written by Dr. Alice Ginsberg, Assistant Director for Research, Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions at the University of Pennsylvania.  Bright Spots in Hispanic Education identifies and highlights "asset-based, solution-oriented innovations that are helping close the achievement gap for Latinos."
  
The Mini-Corps teachers get a minimum of 3,000 hours of field experiences before they enter the classroom and they get taught an advanced teacher preparatory curriculum that additionally prepares them well for graduate school should they decide to take their education further.  Home visits to migrant worker families' homes are a regular feature of this program.  The teachers themselves emanate from migrant worker households.

In existence since 1967, this program has deep roots in the Central Valley and in the state of California, generally, considering that there are 22 program sites.  The coordinators themselves are products of this program.  University professors, researchers, and state leadership has grown out of this program.  Such a beautiful story all of this.  Everybody's eyes light up when they talk about it and the varied, multiple, and exponential ways that it has contributed to the well being of so many Mexican-origin, children, families, and communities, lifting them up out of poverty and uncertain futures.

With such great programs like these, we do not need to outsource teacher preparation to the for-profit sector.  We need programs like these that are grounded in our communities and that grow our own teachers. Children need to see teachers that look like them in their classrooms, who share their experiences, languages, and community-based identities.  This is one such program that is making a difference in the world.  Their hard-earned, mostly under-recognized, and under-funded efforts have nevertheless harvested—and promise to continue harvesting—an abundant, life-giving future to "the least of these."
Angela Valenzuela
c/s

mini_corps_Centerpiece

Mini-Corps program recognized by White House

Fresno State’s Mini-Corps Program was recognized by the White House for helping to close the achievement gap among Latino students. 

Mini-Corps is a statewide program that was founded in 1967 and is designed to provide instructional services to migrant students in grades K-12 with the help of trained college students.

Mini-Corps coordinators Lilly Lomeli and Jose Mejia were both ecstatic when they heard the news.  
“I wanted to scream,” said Lomeli when she found out the program received White House recognition.

“We’re really happy that we got that recognition,” Mejia said. “It just shows the amount of work students do, the impact that they have and what the program has become.”

The online report, “Bright Spots in Hispanic Education Fulfilling America’s Future,” was released on Sept. 15 by the White House. The goal of the report is to highlight the efforts that programs, models, organizations and initiatives have done across the county to help support Latino education and excellence. More than 230 programs were featured on the report. 

“It’s a small program, but it has a big impact,” Lomeli said.

The University of Pennsylvania nominated Fresno State’s Mini-Corps Program for the White House honors. 

“We work closely with some professors there and that’s how we got connected with them,” Lomeli said.

“We got a grant through the University of Pennsylvania. So they came and they interviewed our students, interviewed us and they recognized this was a good program, especially for future teachers.”
Mejia said the University of Pennsylvania recorded Fresno State’s Mini-Corps Program information, wrote it all up and then submitted it.

“They felt that it was a great program, and that it should be recognized,” he said. “I think they saw the process students go through and the support they get here. The end result is not only positive but very high in terms of our students graduating and actually acquiring their teaching credentials.”

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Ed school dean: Urban school reform is really about land development (not kids)

I am re-posting this from Valerie Strauss' blog, the Answer Sheet. This should cause folks in Austin and other places that are gentrifying—to consider the agendas behind gentrification:
Black inner-city residents are suspicious of school reform (particularly when it is attached to neighborhood revitalization) which they view as an imposition from external white elites who are exclusively committed to using schools to recalculate urban land values at the expense of black children, parents and communities.

Here is a link to the book titled, The Color of School Reform" (1999) mentioned in this piece.

-Angela

Ed school dean: Urban school reform is really about land development (not kids)




(Correction: Fixing publication date for book, and removing quote attributed to book)

Here is a provocative piece from Leslie T. Fenwick, dean of the Howard University School of Education and a professor of education policy, about what is really behind urban school reform. It’s not about fixing schools, she argues, but, rather, about urban land development. Fenwick has devoted her career to improving educational opportunity and outcomes for African American and other under-served students.
By Leslie T. Fenwick
The truth can be used to tell a lie. The truth is that black parents’ frustration with the quality of public schools is at an all time righteous high. Though black and white parents’ commitment to their child’s schooling is comparable, more black parents report dissatisfaction with the school their child attends. Approximately 90 percent of black and white parents report attending parent teacher association meetings and nearly 80 percent of black and white parents report attending teacher conferences. Despite these similarities, fewer black parents (47 percent) than white parents (64 percent) report being very satisfied with the school their child attends. This dissatisfaction among black parents is so whether these parents are college-educated, high income, or poor.
The lie is that schemes like Teach For America, charter schools backed by venture capitalists, education management organizations (EMOs), and Broad Foundation-prepared superintendents address black parents concerns about the quality of public schools for their children. These schemes are not designed to cure what ails under-performing schools. They are designed to shift tax dollars away from schools serving black and poor students; displace authentic black educational leadership; and erode national commitment to the ideal of public education.

Consider these facts: With a median household income of nearly $75,000, Prince George’s County is the wealthiest majority black county in the United States. Nearly 55 percent of the county’s businesses are black-owned and almost 70 percent of residents own homes, according to the U.S. Census.  One of Prince George’s County’s easternmost borders is a mere six minutes from Washington, D.C., which houses the largest population of college-educated blacks in the nation. In the United States, a general rule of thumb is that communities with higher family incomes and parental levels of education have better public schools. So, why is it that black parents living in the upscale Woodmore or Fairwood estates of Prince George’s County or the tony Garden District homes up 16th Street in Washington D.C. struggle to find quality public schools for their children just like black parents in Syphax Gardens, the southwest D.C. public housing community?

The answer is this: Whether they are solidly middle- or upper-income or poor, neither group of blacks controls the critical economic levers shaping school reform. And, this is because urban school reform is not about schools or reform. It is about land development.

In most urban centers like Washington D.C. and Prince George’s County, black political leadership does not have independent access to the capital that drives land development. These resources are still controlled by white male economic elites. Additionally, black elected local officials by necessity must interact with state and national officials. The overwhelming majority of these officials are white males who often enact policies and create funding streams benefiting their interests and not the local black community’s interests.

The authors of “The Color of School Reform” affirm this assertion in their study of school reform in Baltimore, Detroit and Atlanta. They found:
Many key figures promoting broad efficiency-oriented reform initiatives [for urban schools] were whites who either lived in the suburbs or sent their children to private schools (Henig et al, 2001).
Local control of public schools (through elected school boards) is supposed to empower parents and community residents. This rarely happens in school districts serving black and poor students. Too often people intent on exploiting schools for their own personal gain short circuit the work of deep and lasting school and community uplift. Mayoral control, Teach for America, education management organizations and venture capital-funded charter schools have not garnered much grassroots support or enthusiasm among lower- and middle-income black parents whose children attend urban schools because these parents often view these schemes as uninformed by their community and disconnected from the best interest of their children.

In the most recent cases of Washington D.C. and Chicago, black parents and other community members point to school closings as verification of their distrust of school “reform” efforts. Indeed, mayoral control has been linked to an emerging pattern of closing and disinvesting in schools that serve black poor students and reopening them as charters operated by education management organizations and backed by venture capitalists. While mayoral control proposes to expand educational opportunities for black and poor students, more-often-than-not new schools are placed in upper-income, gentrifying white areas of town, while more schools are closed and fewer new schools are opened in lower-income, black areas thus increasing the level of educational inequity. Black inner-city residents are suspicious of school reform (particularly when it is attached to neighborhood revitalization) which they view as an imposition from external white elites who are exclusively committed to using schools to recalculate urban land values at the expense of black children, parents and communities.

So, what is the answer to improving schools for black children? Elected officials must advocate for equalizing state funding formula so that urban school districts garner more financial resources to hire credentialed and committed teachers and stabilize principal and superintendent leadership. Funding makes a difference. Black students who attend schools where 50 percent of more of the children are on free/reduced lunch are 70 percent more likely to have an uncertified teacher (or one without a college major or minor in the subject area) teaching them four subjects: math, science, social studies and English. How can the nation continue to raise the bar on what we expect students to know and demonstrate on standardized tests and lower the bar on who teaches them?

As the nation’s inner cities are dotted with coffee shop chains, boutique furniture stores, and the skyline changes from public housing to high-rise condominium buildings, listen to the refrain about school reform sung by some intimidated elected officials and submissive superintendents. That refrain is really about exporting the urban poor, reclaiming inner city land, and using schools to recalculate urban land value. This kind of school reform is not about children, it’s about the business elite gaining access to the nearly $600 billion that supports the nation’s public schools. It’s about money.


Valerie Strauss covers education and runs The Answer Sheet blog.

The link between emotion and working memory

Important, interesting research on emotions and the brain from
-Angela

Emotional control and the brain.  Could you learn to have better control of your emotions? A 2013 study in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that a certain type of working memory training can help people regulate their emotions in high-stress situations. 


The link between emotion and working memory
Emotional control, or the ability to regulate your emotional responses and stay focused on a goal, helps determine success in personal relationships as well as in professional ones. The researchers in this study noted that emotional control and working memory rely upon some of the same brain areas, including the frontoparietal area and the amygdala. Since these two functions share brain pathways, they posited that strengthening one could strengthen the other.

Working memory, your ability to store and use multiple pieces of information at once, is a skill drawn upon in many aspects of daily life. Every time you mentally calculate a tip while splitting a bill or hold on to your original train of thought when interrupted, you use your working memory.
Special emotion-oriented working memory training
Researchers divided the study’s 34 participants into two groups: one trained working memory for 20 days, while the other placebo group played simple games for 20 days.

The group that trained worked with a special version of the dual n-back task, a common neuropsychological task used in many studies. The traditional dual n-back task has people observe sequences of two types of stimuli, typically an image and a sound. People must compare the current item with what they heard or saw 1, 2, 3, or more trials ago.

Researchers added a twist to the dual n-back task to refocus it on emotions. Training participants heard words that evoked strong emotional reactions (dead, evil, rape) and saw images of people making negative facial expressions (fear, anger, disgust).

Training helped lower emotional distress
After 20 days, all participants watched a series of emotionally disturbing films on topics such as war, famine, or accidents. While watching, participants were asked to either control their emotions or not attempt any control.

As a group, those trained working memory self-reported less distress when they watched the disturbing films while trying to control their emotions. Self-reported distress was significantly higher in the placebo group. Furthermore, fMRI brain scans showed that those who trained working memory also had different patterns of brain activation.

The future of emotional training
The ability to rein in your emotions and keep a cool head is crucial to success in many avenues of life. While there are still many open questions about emotional control, this study suggests that researchers may find a clue by exploring its relation to other well-studied brain functions. The more we learn, the better we may be able to help people understand not only their intellectual capabilities but also other aspects of their cognitive well-being.

Monday, October 26, 2015

A view of the future through kindergarten demographics

Why we should focus on today's kindergartners and earlier ages:
“Today's kindergartners will be in their early 40s by 2050, when Latinos are expected to comprise nearly a third of the US population. Thus, the strength of the country's future workforce will depend on today's investments in facilitating their academic journey.”  (p. 22)
Murphey, D., Guzman, L., & Torres, A. M. (2014). America's Hispanic Children: Gaining Ground, Looking Forward. Child Trends.
  
-Angela 

Today’s kindergartners offer a glimpse of tomorrow’s demographics. A
new data analysis by Pew Research Center finds a big increase over the
past decade in the number of states where at least one-in-five public
school kindergartners are Latino.


There are 17 states where Latino children comprise at least 20% of
the public school kindergarten population, according to our analysis of
2012 Census Bureau data. By comparison, just eight states had such a
composition a decade earlier, in 2000.

Hispanic Kindergartners in America


At 54 million, Hispanics are the largest minority group. They make up 17% of the nation’s population, and have dispersed across the nation. The states where at least one-in-five kindergartners are Hispanic include some states with historically few Hispanic immigrants,
such as Nebraska, Idaho and Washington. In Kansas and Oregon, fully
one-in-four kindergartners are Hispanic, the same share as in New York,
which has the fourth-largest Hispanic population in the country.  


Fueled in part by Hispanic population growth, there may be more
minorities in classrooms when school starts this fall (among them
blacks, Asians and Hispanics) than white students nationwide in K-12
public schools, according to U.S. Department of Education projections.
In 2014, some 50.3% of students are projected to be minorities. That’s a
sharp increase from 1997, when minorities made up just 36.7% of
students.


Minorities also are expected to become the majority in the United
States in the coming decades. Minorities today make up about 37% of the
overall population, with the share projected to increase to 57% by 2060,
according to the Census Bureau. Among people of all ages, there are
four states where minorities make up a majority of the
population—California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Texas.


Looking ahead, nearly half of babies born in the U.S. today are a racial or ethnic minority, though they are not yet a majority. The number of Hispanics has increased in recent years primarily due to births, as the number of Hispanic immigrants has stalled after four decades of rapid growth. In 2012, one-in-four of the nation’s newborns were Hispanic. By 2060, Hispanics are projected to make up 31% of the overall U.S. population.




The U.S. Hispanic population has increased sixfold since 1970


Trying to keep up with the trends.  Here's an earlier piece by Anna Brown that I published on my blog to add to this one.  Here's another related piece on kindergarten demographics by Jens Manuel Krogstad, 2014.


-Angela

February 26, 2014

The U.S. Hispanic population has increased sixfold since 1970

53,027,708 The U.S. Hispanic population in 2012 was 53,027,708, nearly six times the population in 1970.
The Hispanic population grew to 53 million in 2012, a 50% increase since 2000 and nearly six times the population in 1970, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data. Meanwhile, the overall U.S. population increased by only 12% from 2000 to 2012. Hispanic population growth accounted for more than half of the country’s growth in this time period.

U.S. Hispanic Population in 2012Much of the growth is occurring in a relatively small geographic area. A Pew Research Center analysis last year found that the 10 largest counties by Hispanic population accounted for 22% of the national Hispanic population growth between 2000 and 2011. Half of these counties are located in California.
Nationally, Mexicans are the largest Hispanic origin group but the composition of origin groups varies by geographic area. For example, while Mexicans represent a majority of Hispanics in all but 11 states, Puerto Ricans are the largest group in New York and New Jersey and Cubans are most populous in Florida.
The demographics of each origin group vary significantly. For example, Hispanics of Mexican origin are the youngest out of the 14 largest origin groups, with a median age of 25, compared with Cubans’  median age of 40. Venezuelans are the most likely to have a college degree (51%), compared with 7% of both Guatemalans and Salvadorans.

 

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Mexican-American Indians now make up the fourth largest tribal group in the United States

This piece provides a fairly comprehensive look at what many see as a renaissance of indigeneity or indigenous identity in the U.S.  One wonders about the impact of DNA analysis, too, that is awakening folks to it.  It's an imprecise science but it improves with more people doing their estimates, as well as with picking a vendor that produces valid results.  I found this piece by Roberta Estes along these lines to be the most helpful in this regard. 

-Angela Valenzuela

Mexican-American Indians now make up the fourth largest tribal group in the United States

by Esmeralda Ojeda // October 24, 2013 // Arts & Culture

Mexican-American Indians now make up the fourth largest tribal group in the United States Young Tarahumaran girls in northern Mexico. By: Santi Llobet / www.flickr.com License: Creative Commons License (By SA 2.0) 

Mexican-American Indians now make up the fourth largest tribal group in the United States, following the Cherokee, Navajo, and Choctaw, according to the US Census.

A US Census brief, titled “The American Indian and Native Population: 2010,” states that there are 175,494 Mexican-American Indians nationwide, 14,435 in Texas, and 578 in El Paso County.

These figures do not include members of the Tigua tribe in El Paso. As of 2012, there were 1,717 members of the tribe.

According to a July 3, 2011 New York Times article, “The trend is part of a demographic growth taking place nationwide of Hispanics using ‘American Indian’ to identify their race. The number of Amerindians—a blanket term for indigenous people of the Americas, North and South—who also identify themselves as Hispanic has tripled since 2000, to 1.2 million from 400,000.”

The “Mexican” category is a subset of the “Hispanic” category under US Census rules.

Dr. Howard Campbell, a professor of anthropology at UTEP, said that there are various factors that may attribute to the growth of people self-identifying as Mexican-American Indians.

One factor may be the US Census itself. “It’s making it possible for many to identify with more labels, such as black and Hispanic, and so forth,” said Dr. Campbell. However, he said that calling Mexican-American Indians a “tribe” can be misleading.

“Given that Mexico is a Mestizo country, most people of Mexican descent are part Indian. They just don’t convalesce as a unit as they do in the US. Mexican Indian isn’t considered Native American in the US. It becomes a symbolical matter rather than a political one,” he said.

Another factor at play may be growing pride of indigenous ancestry in the Mexican-American community, said Dr. Campbell. “We know that Indians in the past were terribly mistreated, but now people are starting to realize that the culture is important. There is a growing pride of indigenous people here and in Mexico. And that’s a good thing.”

An additional reason for the growth of people indentifying as Mexican-American Indian may stem from the growth of awareness.

Spencer Herrera is an associate professor for the Department of Languages and Linguistics at New Mexico State University with a focus on Chicano Literature. He talked about a local group of people from New Mexico beginning to identify as American Indian, known as the Genizaros.

In 2010, Herrera helped host a symposium titled, “Los Comanches de los Ranchos de Taos: An Hispanicized Native American Cultural Tradition.” The symposium consisted of exhibitions and cultural dances by the Genizaros.

He mentioned that many Genizaros are aware of their Native American heritage, but are shy about it because they are not recognized by other Native American groups. Although they are recognized as a tribe by the state, they have yet to be recognized nationally.

“The Genizaros took on Hispanic last names, but throughout history, they have been able to maintain their culture,” said Herrera. “It’s a weird thing to be Genizaro. They speak Spanish, but they’re not accepted by other Indians because they don’t have papers. They’re kind of a group to their own.”
A Certificate of Degree of Indian or Alaska Native Blood (CDIB) is required in order to become an enrolled member of a federally recognized Indian tribe.

Herrera is hoping to spread more awareness with another symposium in the coming years.
“A lot of people don’t accept Genizaros because they don’t have BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) papers. They don’t need papers to know (who they) are. They look Hispanic, but they’re still Indian. They live it. They practice it.”

Another critical factor attributing to the growth of Mexican-American Indians is the growing numbers of indigenous immigrants from Mexico, especially in California, New York, and Florida.
According to a Census Bureau American Community Survey, 70 percent of American Indians in New York are of Hispanic origin.

In another example, the Indigenous Farmworker Study or IFS—a partnership conceived by California Rural Legal Assistance and Dr. Rick Mines—found that California is home to 120,000 indigenous Mexican farmworkers. The research notes that the figure may actually be higher, because it doesn’t include those who work outside of the agriculture field.

One other factor attributing to the growth of Mexican-American Indians is the changing demographics of Mexican migrants due to the effects of NAFTA, or North American Free Trade Agreement, which was implemented in 1994.

According to a report by Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, “NAFTA-required changes have resulted in millions of Mexican peasant farmers leaving their small farms and their livelihoods and being forced to migrate. Projections range up to 15 million displaced Mexican small farmers because of NAFTA’s agriculture provisions.”

The World Bank reports that between 1994 and 2004, Mexico’s indigenous population was predominantly rural and lived in small communities of fewer than 15,000 people.

“While only 35 percent of the non-indigenous population lives in rural areas, over 72 percent of the indigenous population lives in rural communities,” the World Bank states.

The World Bank goes on to say that in 2002, 89.7 percent of Mexico’s indigenous peoples lived in poverty.

In a February 2003 discussion paper, the International Fund for Agricultural Development or IFAD, a United Nations financial institution, said that poor indigenous peoples in Mexico and other Latin American countries are an at-risk group.

“They are also among the most vulnerable and marginalized of the rural poor,” the paper says.
The Census Bureau plans to release a report consisting of the latest estimate of Mexican-American Indians in the El Paso area this coming November.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 29, 2013

A quote from Spencer Herrera, associate professor for the Department of Languages and Linguistics at New Mexico State University, was corrected to reflect his view that Genizaros appear Hispanic, not White.

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Carlos Varela Foto de Familia with English subtitles





Such a beautiful song by Cuban Artist Carlos Varela that calls for peace and reconciliation.  Behind all the fractures in families and identities that are largely artifacts of unjust government policies and actions are family photos and the enduring, tender memories that they inscribe.  So very touching.



-Angela

Kids For Cash: Inside One of the Nation's Most Shocking Juvenile Justice...

 
This is the first of three episodes on youtube.com that you can view in sequence.


"Kids for Cash" is a must see, very disturbing documentary if you've not seen it.  Here is Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! covering it on her program. It tells the story of Pennsylvania, school-age children being summarily handcuffed and dragged out of the courtroom for truly minor infractions before bewildered, astonished parents that had been previously discouraged from getting attorneys in their children's defense.  In 2008, executive director of the Juvenile Law Center, Robert Schwartz,was able to investigate this and unearth this horrific practice of kickbacks to the tune of $2.6 million from Robert Mericle and Robert Powell, co-owners of two private, for-profit juvenile facilities.

The corrupt judge behind this scandal is named  Mark Aurthur Ciavarella, Jr.  He received a 28-year sentence in federal prison and is now doing time at the Federal Correctional Institution, Williamsburg in Salters, South Carolina. In this report, Goodman engages the voices of youth and parents left with shattered lives and indelible scars in the aftermath of this injustice.  Also see the Wikipedia article by its same title, "Kids for Cash Scandal."

It is important to bring these scandals to light so that parents and the public, in general, can not only grasp the powerful, for-profit interests that influence the adjudication of crime—with this as an extreme case (the very same interests that drive undocumented immigrant detention), but also so that they can act more wisely and intelligently on their children's behalf.  Children and parents do have rights to an attorney and an appeal whenever appearing before a judge; and they should never be so trusting.  I did a quick search and here is one site that provides a checklist of rights in the event that you or your son/daughter gets arrested.

Angela Valenzuela
c/s

Friday, October 23, 2015

Labeling Young Children With 'Word Gap' Language Is Harmful

UT's Dr. Adair is doing important research that exposes the deficit assumptions of many classroom teachers of Latino/a youth that is further justified in terms of an emerging "word gap" discourse.  Quote from within:

If we decide to label children by what they are not, rather than who they are and the capabilities they can expand then we are stuck blaming children for what we don't think they can handle.
If we continue to use word gap language for describing young children, we are just as misleading as Texas textbooks in how we label people.
Children deserve multiple and sophisticated learning experience. Let's be responsible with our words.
Rather than helping children, this discourse has unfortunately further solidified deficit assumptions. We should consider instead our children's funds of knowledge and their cultural community wealth, and most seriously, the gulf in sociocultural awareness and knowledge that largely exists between our schools and the children's communities from which they emanate.  Our communities of color also need to be much more involved in their children's education where education and self-determination are adjoined goals.

-Angela 

Labeling Young Children With 'Word Gap' Language Is Harmful

Posted: Updated: Over the past few years, in my role as an early education professor and anthropologist, I have increasingly witnessed children being labeled at higher and higher costs. And this is happening younger and younger.
Young children in preK are put into red, yellow and green categories of reading success as early as age 4.
The newest label comes from the word gap argument which is supposed to alert everyone to the idea that young children from poor families begin school at a disadvantage because by the time are 3 years old they have heard thirty million fewer words.
Perhaps this doesn't seem like a serious labeling problem. After all, if we let everyone know that poor children will hear fewer words, then the adults in their lives will be motivated to talk and read to them more.
This is not what's happening so far.
Instead, like textbooks in Texas, the word gap argument is glossing over the very real historical and complicated understanding of the causes of poverty that should blame leaders and systemic inequities, rather than on the children and families. And it fails to recognize how White upper middle class versions of speaking and/or communicating with children are somehow inherently better than other families'.
Despite such deficit attitudes towards families, the word gap argument is finding a powerful fan base.
The word gap has received extensive media coverage over the past two years. This includes tremendous support from the White House, national early childhood advocacy groups and major foundations. This mostly positive reception masks or perhaps is naïve to, as I was, to how the word gap may be used to deny children in poverty important early learning experiences.
I was first alerted to this problem when I realized that teachers, principals and school officials in my latest early childhood education research study have been using this word gap language to articulate why they can't or don't give poor children of color dynamic, sophisticated, creative learning experiences. In my work, I make films of classrooms where mostly Latino children of immigrants get to make a lot of decisions, conduct research on their own, gather input and ideas from their classmates, discuss ideas and share stories, resolve conflicts and design projects.
Almost every single time I show these films to teachers and principals at schools that mostly serve Latino immigrant and/or low-income communities, they say that the kinds of learning in the films are good but would not work in their classrooms.
"It seems nice but it would not work at our school. Our kids don't have the vocabulary to do that."
Out of interviews with more than 100 teachers and administrators, almost every single group referred to a lack of words as being the reason to withhold dynamic learning experiences. Not because they believe other types of learning would be better. Not because of testing. Now, the rationale is about the children's lack of vocabulary.
Under enormous pressure with little autonomy, teachers who work in low-income schools are often pushed to deliver the same literacy outcomes with fewer resources. In schools across the country, there is an increasingly narrowed curriculum for many young children but disproportionately for children in poverty. Children who could benefit from multiple, routine experiences to learn through curiosity and cooperative, interdisciplinary types of learning are most often in classroom settings where they sit and memorize and follow directions.
And yet it is the same learning experiences in the early grades that will develop their vocabulary along with a host of other important academic, cognitive and social capabilities.
If we focus a great deal of attention on word count deficiencies rather than the resilience, funds of knowledge and potential capabilities of children and families struggling in poverty, then we will most surely deny them the learning experiences we offer those without those struggles.
If we decide to label children by what they are not, rather than who they are and the capabilities they can expand then we are stuck blaming children for what we don't think they can handle.
If we continue to use word gap language for describing young children, we are just as misleading as Texas textbooks in how we label people.
Children deserve multiple and sophisticated learning experience. Let's be responsible with our words.