Equity and Access Newsletter
Elementary Edition April 2018
There's A Difference Between Not Knowing And Not Knowing Yet!
The Growth Mindset Coach by Annie Brock and Heather Hundley
Test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don’t tell you where a student could end up. - Carol Dweck
In Carol Dweck’s heavily viewed TED Talk , “The Power of Believing That You Can Improve,” she talks about a school in Chicago where students receive the grade "not yet" if they don’t pass a class. Students feel if they get a failing grade they are going nowhere but the "not yet" grade gives them a path into the future.
Moving kids from knowledgeable to knowledge-able gives them authentic learning opportunities. Which inspires them both to find more answers and generate more questions. We should motivate our students to be curious about the world Brock and Hundley says, and not so much about how many points they need to get an A. Here are some ideas for creating knowledge-able task in your classroom.
Did You Know?
Kids can set goals too. It is important to get them started on the life-long journey of thinking, planning and taking action to achieve positive results. Here are a few steps to help them get started:
- Ask, “What do you want to achieve?” – Help your students determine something they would like to achieve.
- Ask, “How will you get there?” – Help him/her plan out the steps to take and the ways to reach their ultimate goal.
- Establish accountability – Have your students write down what he/she wants to achieve and what their plan is for getting there.
- Achieve – Achievement works not only for the outcome, but helps your students see the small accomplishments along the way.
- Review plan/goals/outcomes – Throughout the process ask your students how things are going, if they need to make adjustments and if they like goal setting.
If some of your students do not reach his/her ultimate goal, talk to them about what they learned on the way. It is important to let them know that they still have learned some valuable lessons about planning and goal setting, and a lot about themselves.
“Setting Goals For Kids Is Important Too.” Women's Life Today, womenslife.today/family/setting-goals-for-kids-is-important-too.
What's In Your Tool Box?
Embracing Diversity from Formative Five by Thomas R. Hoerr
Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.
—Jacqueline Woodson
Embracing diversity means understanding that we should recognize and appreciate the differences among us. The dictionary defines embrace as “to take or clasp in the arms press to the bosom hug and to take or receive gladly." We must also learn to go a step beyond accepting and learn to value and appreciate those who are different from us. Teaching diversity can be an uphill journey because we are working against centuries of prejudice. Which means, we must be deliberate in teaching diversity. Embedding diversity into the existing curriculum means looking for opportunities to include and highlight people who reflect a range of differences. We can do this by choosing literature that features diversity, the art on our walls, and having discussions about diversity. It is important that we create an environment where our students feel comfortable confronting the biases and bigotry displayed by others as we teach them how to embrace diversity. Here are five steps offered by Hoerr for teaching students the success skill of embracing diversity.
- Appreciating ourselves - Students of all ages must learn to embrace diversity, to do this they must learn to understand themselves.They can start with their identity (race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religion). Then move on to the biases and perspectives their families hold.
- Recognizing other’s diversities – when we recognize others, we must consider there are many aspects of diversity. Race is only one aspect that we see but it goes deeper than that (age, disablities and gender).
- Appreciating others – This can be difficult due to our tendency to judge others. However, if we concentrate on the character of the person it will become easier to embrace our differences.
- Planning and Implementing - are designed to enable students to act upon the understanding and respect they have for each other - first in the classroom, then school-wide and finally in the community.
Students need to see themselves as active participants in embracing diversity and as people who have the potential to make the world a better place. As students begin to explore ways to make the world a better place they have a desire to share their knowledge with others.
Book of the Month
The month of April is Poetry Month. We would like to honor a great American poet, novelist and playwright from Joplin, Missouri, Langston Hughes. Langston’s African American themes made him a primary contributor to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s. In the book Poetry for Young People, Hughes’s powerful magnificent words still resonate through poems like, 'I, Too', 'Harlem', 'Mother to Son', 'The Negro Speaks of Rivers,' and 'I Hear America Singing'. Langston Hughes’s poems are timeless and my personal favorite is:
I, Too
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
Poetry for Young People by Langston Hughes can be found in Springfield Public Schools Libraries
Race And Poverty
Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys
By Emily Badger,Claire Cain Miller, Adam Pearce and Kevin Quealy
Studies following the lives of 8,082 boys show that Black boys raised in wealthy families and well-to-do neighborhoods, will still earn less than White boys from similar backgrounds. Will Jawando, who worked in the Obama White House, believed that individual and structural racism targeted Black men in ways that require policies devised specially for them. Strategies from My Brother’s Keeper (an initiative to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color) suggest six milestones to strengthen Black males:
· Getting a Healthy Start and Entering School Ready to Learn
A healthy start should be available to all children entering school.
· Reading at Grade Level by Third Grade
Students by the age of eight should be reading at grade level.
· Graduating from High School Ready for College and Career
A Quality high school education with the skills and tools needed to succeed should be available to all youth.
· Completing Postsecondary Education or Training
Postsecondary education and training should be available to all students for the quality jobs of today and tomorrow.
· Successfully Entering the Workforce
Americans who want a job that will support themselves and their families should be able to get a job.
· Keeping Kids on Track and Giving Them Second Chances
Confined individuals should have an opportunity to receive training or education and children and youth should be safe from crime.