Schools Official in New Jersey Orders Plan to Combat Hazing

CAROLâ€™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 â€œslut 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 â€œbecause no one is going to take the rap for someone else.â€ 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on the people they think don’t fit in, maybe because of how they look, how they act (for example, kids who are shy and withdrawn), their race or religion, or because the bullies think their target may be gay or lesbian.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. LifeBoundâ€™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. â€” 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.

â€œThis is not acceptable behavior; it will not be tolerated,â€ the board president, Noreen Brunini, said of the most recent hazing, which included the distribution of an annual â€œslut listâ€ of incoming freshman girls. â€œThis is the end of this.â€

To view this entire article visit www.nytimes.com

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Panel Urges Attention to Adolescent Literacy

CAROLâ€™S SUMMARY:

In the article below, Carnegie Corporation of New Yorkâ€™s Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy experts gathered to discuss their final report in which they spent five years examining the need for better reading and writing skills among students in grades 4 through 12. The experts stressed the importance of action at each state level, suggesting reading and writing standards be set high and state tests be set to the levels of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Statewide data systems for all literacy, as well as, including adolescent-literacy training in state teacher-certification programs were considered of high importance.

Catherine Snow, a Harvard University education professor who chaired the Carnegie panel, said an important tenement of the report is to have the nationâ€™s entire education system recognize that the traditional literacy approach (focusing on building skills at a young age) doesnâ€™t help students with â€œcomplex vocabulary, composition, and concepts they encounter in high school.â€ Another panelist, Michael Kamil, a Stanford University education professor, said that the sole responsibility for teaching adolescent literacy cannot rest on the shoulders of English teachers. Literacy needs to be taught across the disciplines in each subject of middle and high school, because at these higher levels, literacy comprehension, and therefore instruction, is grounded within the content.

Students learn best when they can draw comparisons and connections between information they already know and the new knowledge presented to them. That is why in Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers, the basics of problem solving are presented to high schoolers within profiles about innovators in medicine, science, math, finance, art, music and English to relate their previous knowledge of the core subject to the new critical and creative thinking skills taught within the book. There is no reason why adolescent literacy cannot also be strengthened if it were taught within the core subjects.

How can literacy instruction be integrated into the curriculum of other subjects?

What can districts do to ban together and mastermind effective statewide standards and data systems to measure and track outcomes?

What role does emotional intelligence play in studentsâ€™ ability to build a strong literacy foundation for cross-curriculum learning?

ARTICLE:

EducationWeek

Published Online: September 15, 2009
Panel Urges Attention to Adolescent Literacy
By Catherine Gewertz

Washington

Leading figures in education policy, academia, and philanthropy called today for a â€œre-engineeringâ€ of the nationâ€™s approach to adolescent literacy, saying nothing short of a â€œliteracy revolutionâ€ is needed to keep students in school and ensure that they are able to learn the complex material that college and careers will demand of them.

The experts gathered to discuss and draw attention to the release of the final report of the Carnegie Corporation of New Yorkâ€™s Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, which has spent five years examining the need for better reading and writing skills among students in grades 4 through 12. Vartan Gregorian, the president of the foundation, urged audience members to â€œbe good ancestorsâ€ to future generations by pushing for sound adolescent-literacy policy and practice, given the pivotal role such skills play in young peopleâ€™s lives, and the low level of skill students have shown on national tests.

To view this entire article visit www.edweek.org

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What Traditional Academics Can Learn From a Futurist’s University

CAROLâ€™S SUMMARY:

Singularity University, founded by futurists Ray Kurzweil and Peter H. Diamandis, forward-looking thinkers who share ideas about where technology is headed in the near future and in the long term, is designed to study technologies that are manifesting exponential change. The first ever nine-week session was held last summer and cost $25,000 per student. The course was divided into three parts: In the first three weeks, students attended lectures by experts from business and academe. Over the next three weeks, students each chose one of four areas to research. And the final three weeks, students worked in groups on global challenges that aimed to help at least a billion people around the world.

The article below cites that more than 1,200 students applied to fill the 40 slots, making the program more selective than Harvard University. James A. Dator, director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, at the University of Hawaii-Manoa says Singularity University is an example of the rise in interest in futurology with courses offered at Anne Arundel Community College (Arnold, Maryland), the University of Notre Dame and San Diego City College.

The article also mentions that higher education has experienced relatively small changes: “Compared to most other markets, higher education in particular really hasn’t felt the earthquake,” says Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster who is a consulting professor at Stanford University, and chair of the futures-studies track of Singularity University. More â€œfutures studiesâ€ at the university level would require better preparation of high schools students. LifeBound’s new book, Critical and Creative Thinking for Teenagers sparks innovative thinking, is cross-disciplinary by examining critical and creative thinking through various lenses and promotes media and technology skills. Such a curriculum would equip todayâ€™s high school students with the skills necessary to brainstorm and tackle the worldâ€™s greatest problems. For more information about this resource visit www.lifebound.com.

What steps can higher education take to embrace the technological strides over the last 50 years?

How can we promote critical and creative thinking in the classroom via technologies?

How can â€œfutures studiesâ€ enhance 21st century skills among todayâ€™s students?

ARTICLE:

The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 14, 2009
What Traditional Academics Can Learn From a Futurist’s University
By Jeffrey R. Young
Moffett Field, Calif.

“We’re going to be unapologetically interdisciplinary,” said Neil Jacobstein, chairman of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, during one of the first lectures at Singularity University. “That’s not because it’s fashionable, or because the faculty took a vote, but because nature has no departments.”

The students burst into applause.

That dig against traditional institutions was par for the course at the unusual new high-tech university, which wrapped up its first nine-week session at NASA’s Ames Research Center here last month. Students were asked to come up with technological projects that would help at least a billion people around the world, reflecting the techno-utopian vision of the institution’s founders.

To view this entire article visit www.chronicle.com

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Duncan Urges Colleges to Help Underperforming Schools More

CAROLâ€™S SUMMARY: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former chief executive of Chicago Public Schools before joining President Obamaâ€™s administration, delivered a keynote speech at an education forum to encourage other colleges and universities to follow the University of Chicagoâ€™s example by taking districts under their wings. Specifically, he charged universities to â€œestablish their own charter schools, develop better research methods to track the results of efforts to improve schools’ performance and provide more hands-on training and support for teachers.â€ By working together school districts improve their graduation rates and universities promote higher education and career training. While Timothy Knowles, Director the Urban Education Institute admits, “Not every university in the country should own and operate a public school,” every university can involve themselves in education reform by coming alongside struggling schools.

Academic coaching, with its emphasis on asking powerful questions, can help equip teachers with the tools for creating dynamic classrooms and becoming leaders in their districts. Many student success programs operate at both the high school and college level and collaboration could serve as an iron sharpens iron proposition. If teachers and professors attended academic coaches training together itâ€™s possible that bonds would form in the spirit of cooperation and common good that might withstand the high turnover of school district administrations.
Could your district benefit from academic coaching?

What specific steps can school districts and universities to band together to improve our nationâ€™s educational system?

Who is ultimately responsible for education reform and how might student success and transition programs be at the center of this reform?

ARTICLE:
The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 10, 2009
Duncan Urges Colleges to Help Underperforming Schools More
By Libby Nelson
Washington

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urged universities on Thursday to get more involved in helping to improve underperforming schools, by forming partnerships with local school districts, establishing charter schools, and improving teacher education.

In a keynote address at an education forum presented here by the University of Chicago, Mr. Duncan pointed to that institution’s charter schools as an example and praised the university for not being an “ivory tower in the middle of the city.”

To view this entire article visit www.chronicle.com

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Making a Community College Work for You

Today’s featured article from the Chronicle of Higher Education addresses the challenges one community college faces as it scrambles to make room for a record number of incoming students.Â As more and more community colleges face this issue, students attending these institutions will need to deal with a new array of challenges:

Increased class sizes and larger student bodies: A common complaint of students at large colleges is that they feel “lost in the crowd”.Â In order to avoid this, it is up to students to take the initiative to create a smaller network of support in a large institution.Â How? Simply put, by engaging the resources at their disposal: meeting regularly with an advisors, joining co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, taking the time to get to know classmates and making the effort to talk to instructors outside of class.
Strained school resources: As the article notes, many admissions advisors and counselors are dealing with full schedules and dwindling resources.Â Therefore, students need to maximize the time that they are able to spend with these important mentors.Â Preparation is key: students should come up with a list of questions, bring their resume to all meetings and have a solid plan of action each time they meet with an advisor.
A competitive job market: Even though community colleges provide important education and job training opportunities, finding work after school is not guaranteed – especially in this economy.Â Students need to take every opportunity to expand their skills, including internships, networking with professionals in their desired field and staying up to date on the latest sector news and developments.Â As exemplified by the truck driver and the former GM employee mentioned in the article, students need to think of their community college experience as an investment.Â While this investment may not pay off immediately after school, it will undoubtedly increase skill level, earning potential and hireability in the long term.

How a Community College Makes Room

Scrambling to create classrooms as enrollments soar

How a Community College Makes Room 1

By Eric Hoover and Robin Wilson

Baltimore County, Md.

For a long time, nobody knew where the water in the libraryâ€™s basement was coming from, but it was not a pressing concern. After all, most people on the Essex campus of the Community College of Baltimore County had no reason to venture into the buildingâ€™s windowless depths.

That will soon change, however. Administrators expect enrollment in for-credit courses to surge by as much as 20 percent over last fall, and so they have decided that the big, empty space could help ease a serious problem: The college has run out of classrooms.

This summer, workers located the source of the water (a leaking valve). Soon they will build walls, rework the ducts, and convert part of the basement into two classrooms, each with about 24 computers.

“When need dictates, you get creative,” says Sandra L. Kurtinitis, the college’s president.

In Baltimore, as in many places throughout the nation, demand is growing faster than two-year institutions could ever hopeâ€”or affordâ€”to build. This fall’s projected enrollment growth in the college’s for-credit programs follows a 10-percent increase it saw during the last academic year. In total, the college plans to enroll nearly 24,000 students in those programs this fall. An additional 37,000 are expected in its continuing-education courses over the coming academic year, a 9-percent increase over last year.

No Dropouts From This Camden, NJ, High School

CAROL’S SUMMARY
â€œI donâ€™t like work, no one does. But I like what is in workâ€”the chance to find yourself.â€
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Students at MetEast High School in Camden, New Jersey are beating the inner-city success odds by studying their passions, giving and receiving peer feedback and making presentations to students and adults four times a year. MetEast is one of sixty schools nationwide designed to help students figure out their interests and abilities, linking those to careers, colleges and fields of interest. This initiative is made possible by Big Picture Learning, which is a non-profit which works with â€œadvisorsâ€ instead of â€œteachersâ€ who coach, motivate and hold accountable their students whom they work with closely for four years.

Students learn follow-through, a crucial life skill. Angelo Drummond, a MetEast student, has come to know and value himself better by committing himself to improving his SAT scores for college. He is proud that for the first time in his life he has learned to be a finisher. That follow through will help succeed wherever his gifts and talents may take him.

Every student can be exposed to this important personal perspective through a LifeBound book called, Gifts and Talents for Teenagers. This book helps students figure out what they are good at so that they can develop follow-through, discipline and self-mastery. No matter what field they decide to pursue, they will need a quality mindset, an attitude of respect and the ability to be accountable to the highest authority who impacts their livesâ€”themselves.

ARTICLE
Chronicle of Higher Education
By GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK

The best piece of college marketing this year is a television ad that could easily be taken as a fingers-flapping, thumb at the nose to centuries of higher-education tradition.

It’s the Kaplan University spot that starts off showing a pensive-looking “professor” in the well of a wood-paneled lecture hall intoning to his students: “The system has failed you. I have failed you.”

To view the entire article
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i40/40financialaffairs.htm

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Schools of Conscience

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

In the article below, the topic of student conscience and civic engagement is explored in the context of courageous individuals who have quietly helped Holocaust survivors and others in need. The author raises the important perspective that what matters most in our learning is what KIND of students are reading the books and doing the math? The piece of educational emphasis about being a good person, making ethical choices, contributing to the world beyond your own needs is central to human development, but often left out in school. Arguably, these â€œhumanâ€ skills are the most important abilities for college, career and life fulfillment and success.

Several schools in Michigan have taken on a hunger initiative. Their students learned that 18,000 people die each day from hunger and 850 million people go to bed hungry each night. How do you think those statistics motivate apathetic students? Research shows that working with real problems facing the worldâ€”hunger, health, education, injusticesâ€”have the ability to motivate and call forth some of the most dispassionate students. We can all learn a lesson from the model of Michigan and begin to apply this â€œperspectiveâ€ to how we teach students to understand themselves and the world that they are preparing to enter.

In our new book, CRITICAL AND CREATIVE THINKING FOR TEENAGERS, we explore the worldâ€™s greatest problems through each element of critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making and conscious action. Write us for a copy and start now to empower your students through compassion and purposeful life choices.

ARTICLE
Educational Leadership
Charles Haynes

Education’s highest aim is to create moral and civic habits of the heart. At a time when the United States faces unprecedented challenges at home and abroad, public schools must do far more to prepare young people to be engaged, ethical advocates of “liberty and justice for all.” Yes, reading and math are important. But what matters most is what kinds of human beings are reading the books and doing the math.

To view the entire article visit
http://bit.ly/GC0N1

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Texting May Be Taking a Toll

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

Yesterday and today, we worked with a school district, training teachers and administrators from elementary through high school.Â When we asked them what characterizes some of their challenges working with todayâ€™s students, they cited texting and cell phone use as a huge problem.Â The article below is right on with their concerns.Â

Too much texting at school, out of school and in class has caused major problems in focusing and being attentive, teachers say.Â Â Â If studentsÂ are continually distracted by responding to everyone who texts them ( American teenagers sent an average of over 2,000 text messages a month) then they arenâ€™t able to set and maintain boundaries which can allow them to concentrate and follow-through when they need to do that.

Parents and teachers need to work with students on critically analyzing the pros and cons of technologyâ€”especially texting which is the most prevalent Â means of communication among young people. Â Many teens say they would rather text than make a phone call or have an in-person conversation.Â Not only is too much texting an issue of attention, it can also be addicting for students, sucking them into texting all the time at the expense of their own mental and emotional health.Â Â Texting has also fostered an unabashed language of sexual innuendos and trash talk which hamper personal and interpersonal self-respect.

If we really want to help young teens develop their emotional intelligence, as parents and educators, we need to model more attentive interaction ourselves, engage in honest discussions about pros and cons of technology and the basics of how to manage oneself with increasingly complex choices.Â If we are honest about this problem, we can give students the tools to listen to themselves, be brave enough to turn off distractions when needed and say â€œnoâ€ at the right time.

ARTICLE:

New York Times

By KATIE HAFNER

They do it late at night when their parents are asleep. They do it in restaurants and while crossing busy streets. They do it in the classroom with their hands behind their back. They do it so much their thumbs hurt.

Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company â€” almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier. Â

To view entire article visit

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/health/26teen.html?emc=eta1

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AP poll: Most students stressed, some depressed

CAROL’S SUMMARY:
Students today have stress levels which are at an all time high. Some high school students are stressed about the college that they did or didnâ€™t get into and the standard fears all students have about beginning college. Other students are stressed who arenâ€™t going to college because they will be trying to find a job in one of the most difficult markets in twenty-five years. College students are worried about student loans, class size and the pressure to get jobs and internships this summer.

Whether students are in high school or college, many are absorbing stress from parents who have been laid off, suffered financial hardship or have been given double doses of workloads for jobs which still may be in jeopardy. Many students can feel this stress in their families, as well as the typical stressors which entering young adult life brings.

There are some very specific ways that students can deal with stress and depression:

1) Get help. Students with strong self-advocacy skills do better in school and in life than lone-ranger students who â€œgo it aloneâ€ with their problems. There are many professionals available to help you. Access them.

2) Write down your stressors. When problems are defined, they can be solved. Free floating anxiety creates more problems and seems to balloon situations which can be broken down and dealt with.

3) Ask questions about alternate ways to view your problems. Perspective is one of the best ways to see your challenges from the 20,000 foot level. Often, you can find alternatives which can help you greatly.

4) Give yourself some time. Take the time to do one or two things that give you energy and help you feel calmâ€”like running, writing in your journal or sitting quietly as you listen to music.

These are challenging times, yes, but they are also an opportunity to discover what you are made of and what you can withstand. These are life qualities which will serve you well throughout your personal and professional life. As Mary Chapin Carpenter said, â€œKeep the faith, donâ€™t give it away.â€

ARTICLE:
By NANCY BENAC and TREVOR TOMPSON, Associated Press

WASHINGTON â€“ Stress over grades. Financial worries. Trouble sleeping. Feeling hopeless.

So much for those carefree college days.

The vast majority of college students are feeling stressed these days, and significant numbers are at risk of depression, according to an Associated Press-mtvU poll
Eighty-five percent of the students reported feeling stress in their daily lives in recent months, with worries about grades, school work, money and relationships the big culprits.

To read the entire article visit
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_on_re_us/us_college_poll_depression

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Lumina’s Leader Sets Lofty Goals for Fund’s Role in Policy Debates

CAROL’S SUMMARY:

Jamie Merisotis, the 45-year-old President of the Lumina Foundation, has a lot to teach college presidents and K-12 principals through the actions in his first year in this position. First, he has set ambitious goals, the primary one being 60% of the U.S. population earning degrees or credentials by 2025. Second, Merisotis has asked key questions like, why are other developing countries outpacing the U.S. in education and why have we been satisfied with academic performance which is at a 40-year-old standard from which all other countries have moved ambitiously beyond?

Third, he has broadened Lumina’s scope and mission to be a policy-driven change agent in addition to a grant-funding organization. Fourth, he has taken specific steps to model progressive and successful European models in Indiana, Minnesota and Utah so that those models can be improved and expanded in other areas in the U.S. Fifth, Merisotis is forging necessary partnerships with businesses and business leaders who can support, buttress and take action on behalf of this mission. Finally, Merisotis gets that more Americans students need access and student success preparation for continued life success. If we are going to have 16 million more graduates by 2025, we all need to have this same vision, standards, commitment and collaboration.

ARTICLE
Chronicle of Higher Education
By SARA HEBEL

Soon after Jamie P. Merisotis took over the Lumina Foundation for Education last year, he began talking about a “big goal.” America must increase the proportion of its population with degrees or credentials to 60 percent by 2025, in order to remain globally competitive and meet the nation’s growing demand for college-educated workers, he said. The United States, he warned, is falling behind, and the foundation would make reversing the trend the core of its work.

To view the entire article please visit
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=3BtgtkkntsQJxWqc5P3r2k9G9twJmjgd

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