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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Out-of-School, Out-of-the-Box, and Out of This World!
The act of imagining other places, other worlds, is the stuff of explorers, adventurers, science fiction writers – and KIDS! Imagination is something that kids have naturally, and out-of-the-box thinking is a valued creative 21st century skill. Encouraging the kids in your out-of-school program to imagine other worlds, places beyond Earth, can help grow this skill. Couple it with some thought experiments to engage with science – what if earth was closer to our sun, or further away? What if our s... Read More
Finding Common Ground: Connecting Social-Emotional Learning During and Beyond the School Day
The Partnership for Children & Youth (PCY) has recently released Finding Common Ground: Connecting Social-Emotional Learning During and Beyond the School Day. This brief provides language and strategies to support alignment between K-12 and expanded learning programs, by cross-walking key priorities and initiatives in California that impact social-emotional learning (SEL). In PCY’s work with school districts and expanded learning providers over the last year, we have seen that many dis... Read More
Fully Resourced Schools and Youth Development
A little more than two weeks ago, a video depicting an altercation between a school resource officer and a high school student went viral as millions watched the footage of an unarmed female student at Spring Valley High (South Carolina) being pulled from her desk, flipped backward, and dragged across the room. For nearly everyone who saw it, the video was jarring. As a youth development professional, my thoughts went to wanting to understand the steps and decision points that preceded this trou... Read More
Quality Comes First on the Road to Critical Skills and Mindsets
There’s a burgeoning conversation about what kids need in America. More and more, educators, youth developers, and policymakers are thinking and talking about how we help young people build critical skills and mindsets like persistence, self-awareness, empathy, and communication. Paul Tough’s popular book How Children Succeed brought these concepts to popular culture, even Ira Glass got on board in an episode of This American Life! Though we haven’t yet settled on one common ph... Read More
Exploring the Utility of Quality Assessment
As funders, partners, and education departments require out-of-school time programs do some type of quality assessment, I thought it would be timely to discuss successful strategies for implementing a quality assessment process. The last thing we want is to do the work to conduct an assessment and then have the results just sit on a shelf until a report is due…but we all know that can happen if we don’t have a plan for how to use the information to inform practice. Below are some app... Read More
My Why: Because, Me, We
I believe in the interconnectedness of everyone and everything. I believe we are all inextricably woven into the fabric of the humanity and of the universe and because of that, I feel a deep responsibility to do what I feel is right. Our children are humanity’s greatest resource and unfortunately it often seems that as a society, we have forgotten or choose to neglect that. I feel that ALL children deserve and should have a right and equal access to quality education suitable for each chil... Read More
My Why: Youth Are Assets
I started off as a high school English teacher in an East Harlem school with Title 1 funding. My plan was to become a principal and I knew classroom experience was imperative to being an effective school leader. Teacher training helped me understand how to write lessons plans, use different forms of assessment, and reflect on how my own education may influence the way I “showed up” as a teacher. It didn’t prepare me to deal with all the social and personal factors that influenc... Read More
My Why: Defining Moments and Relationships
In college, I was in search of a work-study position to help pay the bills. I knew I loved working with children and so I interviewed for a position with a local after school program. Not only did I receive the job, I received a life-long mentor in the field of education, a passion for the out-of-school time field, and a purpose for continuing my education and career path with children, families, and communities. I do what I do because of the relationship aspect of out-of-school time programs. F... Read More
Expanding Horizons: Global Learning in Out-of-School Time
Asia Society and BOOST Collaborative are partnering to create a series of blogs on global learning in out-of-school time. This month features Heather Loewecke from Asia Society. The impact of globalization is clear. The diversification of our neighborhoods and workplaces, technological advancements, transnational issues, and political conflicts are transforming the ways we must work and interact with individuals from vastly different backgrounds, countries, and cultures. However, research re... Read More