Breakfast Club Blog
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is a curated space where bloggers from around the world contribute content on a continual basis about a variety of topics relevant to in and out-of-school time. The BOOST Breakfast Club blog is at the heart of an ongoing dialogue where expanded learning and education professionals share their personal thoughts and stories from the in and out-of-school time field. They also tell us what they ate for breakfast!
The BOOST Breakfast Club Blog is Brain Food for In and Out-of-School Time Leaders!
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If You Don’t Think Diversified Funding is the Only Way to Sustain Your Program, Think Again…
It’s 2017 and here’s what we’re up against: A billionaire Secretary of Education is committed to dismantling public education as we know it. The White House is targeting immigrants, many of whom are Latino and Asian families living in the communities we serve. A Congressional majority is determined to repeal the Affordable Care Act and reduce Medicaid, both of which provide the only healthcare insurance available to many of the families of the children who attend our programs. ...Read More
Designing Welcoming and Healthy Environments: 4 Activities
Designing welcoming environments for children and families has never been more important. Let’s look at some statistics and then talk action! Recent research shows that high school students report feeling “tired, stressed and bored” during the school day. 28% of U.S. students in grades 6–12 have experienced bullying and children with disabilities experience an increased risk. During the 2013-2014 school year, more than 1.3 million homeless children and youth were enrolled in pu...Read More
Do you love afterschool? Proclaim it loudly!
In partnership with the Afterschool Alliance, we hope you’ll pass this along to parents and friends to help raise awareness for afterschool programs by writing a short letter to your local newspaper. This is a repost from the Afterschool Snack blog. Happy Valentine’s Day from all of us at the BOOST office! “This year, my Valentine is to a program that makes all the difference for me and for my family,“ So began West Valley City, Utah, resident Amanda Owens in her Salt La...Read More
Service-Learning and the Future of America and Education
We are honored to share this blog post provided by the National Youth Leadership Council. The original blog post is written by: Dr. Robert Shumer, NYLC Board Member, University of Minnesota, and Tiveeda Stovall, University of San Diego. America is in its second decade of the 21st century. While the situation is improving in areas of employment rates, health coverage, and increased graduation rates, there are major changes occurring in the US culture and landscape. The impact of technology, glob...Read More
Magical Leadership
The past few weeks have been very fun and proud for me, as this baby of mine, this pet project, this seed of an idea that was planted more than three years ago, finally saw the sunlight. The interactive journal—the book born out of a weekly blog that I write—On Wings & Whimsy: Thoughts on Finding the Extraordinary Within the Ordinary—was published as the first product of The Leadership Program for 2017. It’s a journal designed for personal reflection and development, rooted in stories ...Read More
BOOST Master Class 2017: Ignite Their Passion with Project Based Learning
Are you an after school program leader looking to better connect students to the community? Have you heard about project-based learning but lack the skills to implement it effectively? Do you want to see every single one of your students engaged in work that both challenges them and ignites their passions? Master PBL in 5 Simple Steps Imagine telling your students that they will be designing and printing 3-dimensional medical devices to assist ophthalmologists with eye exams. Or, if 3D printing ...Read More
20 Resources that Create Cultural Exchanges in the Garden
Community gardens serve as a place-based tool for connection, empowerment, and cultural identity. Today, more gardens are popping up in school yards, in vacant lots, nonprofits, and housing developments. Educators are using gardens as creative and holistic tools for teaching beyond the walls of the classroom. In 2014, I wrote the piece, Using Gardens as Classrooms and shared how educators can use garden-based learning in formal and informal education settings with resources related to academic e...Read More
Youth Watch – Observing the Earth for NASA Scientists
Observing. Critical Thinking. Accurate Recording. Reflection. These are much needed skills for living in the complexities of today’s world. Developing these skills helps round out youths’ abilities to navigate in and contribute to a better world, whether as a concerned person or a student looking towards a future career in science or technology. You can support your students to have fun, learn the habits of mind of scientists, and gain some real skills observing and contributing data...Read More
Service Learning, Global Activism, Leadership and Your Middle School Students
Asia Society and BOOST Collaborative have partnered to create a series of blogs on global learning in out-of-school time. This blog entry was originally published on EdWeek’s Global Learning Blog. This piece is written by Linda Kantor Swerdlow. In her new book, Global Activism in an American School from Empathy to Action, Linda shares an example of how students can take action and use their own agency to make a difference in the world. I first met seventh grade English teacher Ron Adams a...Read More
Why it’s Important to Ask “What Could Go Wrong?” During Program Planning
Planning a new program or improvements to an existing program usually involves setting objectives, planning activities, and other critical tasks. In the excitement of planning something new, it can seem like a buzzkill to ask, “What could go wrong?” Several months ago, I started asking this question consistently with staff teams in my division of the Ann Arbor Public Schools. We discussed it when we were planning a kick-off meeting for a district-wide initiative, when we were conside...Read More
Three Shining Lights Against a Dark Cloud
Under normal circumstances, I’m not one to be political in a public and professional forum, but really, I’m in need of some writing therapy. Every day, I read the latest news story about another negative appointment to the President- elect’s cabinet. Who knew there were so many people who both seem to despise the role of government AND also want to lead it? While alarming, those aren’t even the most upsetting parts of my daily doldrums. What really brings me down are the ...Read More
Being Right
My husband and his team put on amazing festivals, and one of them is called The Festival Of Machines. Sprawling over several acres of property, festival-goers can look at (and climb on) cement mixers, tractors, old time steam engines, old time fire engines, classic cars, race cars, army helicopters, and more. They can ride on a mars “rover” bike made by a competitive high school team, race each other on kid-sized motorized vehicles, take flight on a “hover chair,” go on a thrilling ride in an ac...Read More