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Author: breakfastclubguest
Young People in Afterschool Programs Leading Efforts to Improve School Attendance
We often teach our young people to listen to their elders because they are the voices of experience and wisdom. But many times, the best way to get through to a young person is through another young person. With this in mind, it is especially encouraging to be able to recognize two Baltimore-based youth organizations – Wide Angle Youth Media and the Baltimore Urban Debate League – that are engag...
Valuing Children’s Artwork
“Mommy, my art is in the trash!” said 4-year-old Noah with shock and dismay. This is how Board Supervisor, Janice Rutherford, opened her keynote speech to a large group of educators. She held up her son’s paper plate painting and told us how distressed he was when he found it in the trashcan at home. How could this have happened? Surely it must be a mistake because who would thro...
In Serious Need of Fun
Life should be lived as play. Summarized from Plato’s Laws, should be the mantra of every adult providing out-of-school time care for children. Childhood passes swiftly, and even more so as our nation careens down the path of testing and accountability. With Americans living on average into their 70s and 80s, the time one can spend playing without guilt passes in a blink. The childhood exper...
Grow Our Growth Mindset: Rethinking How We Praise Kids
The favorite part of my job is getting out of the office to visit after-school programs. I see that kids really do like science and engineering when given the chance to jump into hands-on projects and explore questions that interest them. What has surprised me is seeing the difference in how kids approach challenges in after-school programs. Engineering design challenges can be a great way for kid...
Expanded Learning, California Style
In 2002, California made a historic investment that forever changed the landscape of our education system. With the passage of Proposition 49, an unprecedented half a billion dollars was devoted to after school programs — more than all other states’ investments combined. This money first went to work in 2007, at a time when we had no idea what was about to happen to our economy. But th...
College Access and Career Readiness through Afterschool Programming
College access and career readiness are important in the discourse regarding social mobility and at the center of discussions about the future of American competitiveness in a global economy that has significantly become knowledge and innovation-based. The Council of Economic Advisors stated in their report Preparing the Workers of Today for the Jobs of Tomorrow (July 2009),”Well-trained and...
How Are You Planning to Spend Your Summer Vacation?
You might not be thinking about summer, but I think it’s the perfect time to ask yourself what the youth in your programs will be doing this summer. The summer experience that was most memorable for me was a sewing class I took in elementary school. My mom was an avid seamstress and made clothes for me and for my dolls. I thought I might design fashion-forward clothes for me and my Barbies i...
The Death of School
Harvard GSE professor Richard Elmore’s recent remarks at May’s Aspen Institute may leave educators feeling a bit disturbed. And that’s exactly what I love about it. In his 8 minute speech, Elmore begins the conversation with the assertion that he does “not believe in the institutional structure of public schooling… anymore.” Wait! What? This is coming from a man...
Education Week: Learning Practices in Immigrant Families
This week we are highlighting a post from Education Week, a nonprofit organization with a mission to raise awareness and understanding of critical issues facing American schools. The blog entry from Education Week is titled, “Early Learning Practices in Immigrant Families,” and is written by Lesli A. Maxwell. Below is an excerpt from the post and we encourage you to follow the entire s...
Celebrate Lights On Afterschool. Hands-On Projects Inspire Students to Find the Engineer Within
“I made a new friend today,” a girl enthusiastically shared as she and her fifth-grade peers cleaned up after making polymers. These girls come together once a week and work through science and engineering activities in an afterschool program hosted by Techbridge. We challenge them to work with students that they don’t know and measure success when we see them supporting each oth...
Adults Aren’t Mature – Get Over It!
You’re an adult. You work with other adults. And neither of those statements guarantees maturity. Get over it. Before you stop reading, insulted and angry at me, let me clarify where this is headed. I write this in order to rid you of the nearly universal frustration that results in the assumption of adult maturity. An assumption that leads to all sorts of gnashing of teeth. Whenever I’...
The Heart of the Matter
The tug-of-war between the priorities of quantity of and quality of out-of-school time programs has finally crossed the mud pit. With millions of children still without a place to go afterschool, this conversation has vacillated between the two opinions. But when research shows that children in low-quality programs have no better outcomes than children who are unsupervised during the same time, qu...