By Claire Lowenstein
Dedicated teachers are always thinking about education and how they can make a difference in their classroom, with their students and even on a national level.
Last week, eleven NYC educators gathered on a mission to help this country see education from an educator’s perspective. The goal was to support presidential nominee Barack Obama and to assist in crafting the party’s education platform. We all agreed that education must be a focus of the next president. It must be high on the agenda and it cannot be absent any longer. That led to a consensus of the group to discuss how teachers can be more instrumental in developing policy on a national level. We perused Barack Obama’s Plan For Lifetime Success Through Education and organically resonated on three topics: Investment in Zero to Five Early Childhood Education, Enlisting Parents and Communities to Support Teaching and Learning and Service Learning through involvement with the community. The group developed some key ideas to push “change” in our schools.
First, allocating money into 0-5 years promotes literacy, and helps with educating parents. We agreed with the need for universal pre-school. One benefit is to special education because it allows more early intervention to occur which addresses needs of students earlier. Then students will have strategies and techniques that will equip them earlier with difficulties in language development, especially in reading and also with emotional development. This early intervention will decrease the amount of students entering elementary school with deficient skills. Perhaps fewer students will then require special education services as they get older.
Among the other hot topics discussed:
Head Start: Obama wants to add more funding. However, a couple of the educators in the group had taught in Head Start programs before teaching in elementary schools and asked why Head Start programs had dropped off in the past or funding has decreased. The teachers had some insights into why Head Start was an imperfect program, which needed restructuring. Their descriptions of the head start programs they were a part of was that money was poorly distributed and materials were ordered that were not age appropriate. The administrators poorly executed the management of the program, and funds were not allocated properly. Also, there was a lack of accountability. There were lots of resources, but many of the teachers did not receive adequate teacher training, and most were not even certified. If Head Start is going to be the nation’s primary early education program, the design of the program needs to be closely looked at and the model should mirror successful pre-schools and existing kindergarten classrooms. After all it is the first experience of school for children and having a model that resembles what they will be promoted to would make it an easier transition for the students and the parents.
Parent involvement: One essential piece is finding parent coordinators who really reach out to the community and then disseminate that information on an ongoing basis with parents. School systems should replicate successful models where parent coordinators have really bridged the gap between parents and the community. Then there would be accountability for the position of parent coordinator and then mediocre positions could improve or be eliminated. The job should entail completing research on after-school programs, health services, and then linking the services with schools. Parent workshops in schools are another vital piece. Students spend more time in school than at home most days and sharing practices and techniques is imperative for school communities.
Community or service learning as a new graduation requirement for high school students: Teenagers used to work in the community when they were growing up. However, they now are isolated and don’t know how to work within the community and if parents don’t have the time to help their child get involved then they are stuck. There has been so much emphasis on testing and that is one way of assessing, but another is having an emphasis on middle school and high school students having work experience in jobs in the neighborhood in their community through internships. Volunteering is a great way to see and to learn about a profession and through work experience a student can develop work ethic. Students should have more involvement in non-academic areas. A great idea is to start in early grades. It is important to remember a school is a community and that is why service learning should be valuable if it is a high school requirement.
Making service learning a policy will push the hand of the policy makers. It is can be an eye experience for students if they are involved in choosing an internship and if someone in their school is supervising the program.
Claire Lowenstein is a New York City public school teacher at PS 333, Manhattan School For Children. Claire has taught middle school English, History, Special Education, and in Collaborative Team Teaching model for the last ten years in three different public schools in Manhattan. Claire has recently taken a leadership role at her current school to help plan a more successful framework for the upcoming school year. Last year, she was a Teachers Network Leadership Met-Life fellow conducting action research around cross age peer tutoring. This summer she is participating in a DFER fellowship for 2008-2009.