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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The Next Generation of Afterschool Staff
When I started out in the afterschool field 30 + years ago I never envisioned this work as a career. I had taken a position as the Outreach Director at a YMCA in New Jersey. One of the many items on my job description was operating the After School Kare (ASK) program at one school site. Fifteen years later when I left the Y the ASK program had grown to 32 sites in 7 school districts with 1600 children. Since that time I’ve worked as a state contract administrator, trainer, and evaluator fo...Read More
The Death of Youth Track & Field
Oklahoma senior Running Back Brennan Clay accepted an invitation to play in the East-West Shrine Game. Clay rushed for 913 yards and six touchdowns this past season for an average of 5.8 yards per carry. The senior’s production came in bursts, as he dropped 200 yards in a win over Kansas State and another 170 in a victory over West Virginia. -Fri, Dec 20, 2013 03:19:00 PM, East-West Shrine Game on Twitter Brennan Clay took part in athletic after school programming from football to track an...Read More
Beyond the Classroom: Where the Magic Can Happen
About six months ago I moved from Minneapolis to New York City. I moved to take a two-year position at Inwood Academy for Leadership, a small charter school that serves a population made up almost entirely of Dominican kids from the Inwood and Washington Heights neighborhoods of Manhattan, many of whom are living in poverty, struggle with English, and come to us grade levels behind. It’s a remarkable school that does remarkable work for these kids. My kids too. You see, both of my sons go ...Read More
Youth Inspiration – A Conversation with Jack Andraka
BOOST Collaborative’s Program Manager Rachel Ruiz had the pleasure of interviewing Jack Andraka, a Maryland high school sophomore who at age 15 invented an inexpensive and sensitive dipstick-like sensor for the rapid and early detection of pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancers. He learned that the lack of a rapid, low-cost early screening method contributed to the poor survival rate among individuals with pancreatic cancer. After thinking further about the problem, he came up with a plan ...Read More
Storytelling for Success: Promoting Your Program
“A story is a fact wrapped in an emotion that compels us to take an action that transforms our world. Telling them (customers, colleagues, bosses) stories, and listening to theirs, is the best way to promote your services and ideas… Stories are the irreducible core, the fire inside every business.” – Richard Maxwell In my own organization, this year has been the year of storytelling. Everyone in the organization has been focused on documenting success, gathering data, and...Read More
Intelligence Redefined – A Conversation with Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D
BOOST Collaborative’s Program Coordinator Rachel Ruiz had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Barry Kaufman, an all around funny and inspiring guy with a Ph.D in Cognitive Psychology from Yale University. Kaufman proposed the Theory of Personal Intelligence, which redefines intelligence as the dynamic interplay of an individual’s engagement and ability over time in the pursuit of personal goals. With this broadened definition, passion and persistence become essential elements of intel...Read More
Every Kid Is Our Kid
When I opened my Internet browser last Friday morning and saw the horrific act of violence that had occurred in Connecticut, my impulse was to ignore the report. “Don’t look at it,” I thought. “It’s too horrible to think about.” I had gleaned from first glance that small children were involved. I didn’t want to let those images enter my psyche. Too scary. But the headline included the words “Sandy Hook” and that triggered a memory. David Whee...Read More
The Power of PICOUP – Are We Facilitators of Learning?
This time of year always brings with it a sense of reflection. As we enter the holiday season, beginning with Thanksgiving, I always feel a strong pull to reflect on all that I have to be grateful for; food, shelter, a loving and healthy family, and the other important people in my life who have help me to become who I am. One such person in my life was my late dear friend, longtime work partner and co-author Mike Gessford, who coined an acronym that he thought accurately described what our job ...Read More
After School Attractions
I woke up early this morning in Washington DC where I am attending a conference on School Counseling programs. We are working on a new program to incorporate school counseling into our after school programs in order to provide students the emotional support they need to succeed. Despite my desire to linger in bed, I know I must get up in order to have time to stand in line for 45 minutes at Market Lunch at the Eastern Market to enjoy Blue Bucks (blueberry pancakes), eggs and biscuits….yum!...Read More
Celebrating Learning Opportunities in the Out-of-School Time Field
I woke up today, and while I was eating my English muffin, having coffee, and waiting for my own kids to finish getting ready for pre-school, I saw a Facebook post by an old friend from high school who is now a sixth-grade teacher. The post displayed a note on a white board, written by a student, and it read, “Mr. G is the best teacher ever!” In a time when there is so much discussion about holding teachers accountable and using test scores to distinguish “good” from R...Read More
The Five Stages of Post Application Rejection Syndrome
On May 3, the California Department of Education posted its “Intent to Award” list for Cohort 7 of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Programs, and like many of my colleagues, I was disappointed to learn that none of the applications I had helped to prepare were on it. Having spent the last few years working as an intermediary, it had been some time since I’d had a personal stake in an application process, and I had forgotten how painful failure can be. As with any los...Read More
A Time to Reflect
Although it is cliché, as the end of the year approaches, it is a time to think about closing out the old year and bringing in the new year. As your programs and schools wind down for the holiday season, this allows us an opportune time to reflect on the accomplishments of our students, our staff, and ourselves. It’s also a time to think about what we did not accomplish in 2011 but what we hope to do in 2012. These may be seemingly minor things like not cleaning out the supply closet, or i...Read More