A new step forward for education and leadership » Current Issues

The changing landscape of our world that forces new thinking

anewstepforward — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:19:11 +0000

The Department of Education reports that between 1994 and 2004, the number of English language learners (ELLs) increased in the United States by 65 percent. With the U.S. Census projecting the country’s population to swell to over 415 million by 2050, the number of ELLs will rise.

Young son of Birmingham Radio Host Rick Burgess Drowns

anewstepforward — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:51:30 +0000

Young Son Of Birmingham Radio Host Drowns In Swimming Pool

Sunday, Jan 20, 2008 – 07:32 PM

By Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – The 2-year-old son of a popular Birmingham radio personality has drowned in a residential swimming pool in Shelby County.In a statement, Sheriff Chris Curry says the child, William Bronner Burgess, the youngest son of Rick and Bubba Show co-host Rick Burgess, was pronounced dead last night at Children’s Hospital.

Shelby County 911 received a report at 7:24 p.m. Saturday of a possible drowning, according to the sheriff. Deputies and North Shelby Fire and Emergency Medical personnel responded to a house on Indian Crest Drive in Indian Springs Village.
The sheriff says a preliminary investigation indicates that this is a tragic accident and he extended “deepest sympathy” to the Burgess family.

Young son of Birmingham Radio Host Rick Burgess Drowns

anewstepforward — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 02:59:53 +0000

Young Son Of Birmingham Radio Host Drowns In Swimming Pool

Sunday, Jan 20, 2008 – 07:32 PM

By Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – The 2-year-old son of a popular Birmingham radio personality has drowned in a residential swimming pool in Shelby County.

In a statement, Sheriff Chris Curry says the child, William Bronner Burgess, the youngest son of Rick and Bubba Show co-host Rick Burgess, was pronounced dead last night at Children’s Hospital.

Do we prepare kids for college or for life?

anewstepforward — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 07:37:28 +0000

January 16, 2008

The College Question

Is our K-12 education system too focused on preparing all kids for college, at the expense of preparing them for life? This basic question has been setting the edusphere ablaze recently.At A Place at the Table, Susan Graham’s blog at Teacher Magazine, Graham asks “Have we all been part of a collusion that promises our young people an Emperor’s New Education when we insist that success, fulfillment, security and happiness can only be cut and stitched from the fabric of a four-year college degree? ” Several recent posts explore various aspects of the issue: Are students choosing college for the right reasons – or any reason at all? How is the college choice affected by increasing global economic competition? Is the push to college robbing some students of other, more fulfilling options?

Over at the ed blog Principled Discovery, a hotly debated post noted the significant number of students who don’t go to college and asked, “could forcing college as the only path to the workforce actually be limiting real opportunities by not valuing other skills and turning a blind eye to the majority of Americans who do not earn a degree?”

We at InService couldn’t let this mini-meme pass by without throwing the issue out to our readers. Is there too much emphasis on college for all? Are we providing appropriate post-secondary options for all students? Check out the blog posts above and their lively comment threads, and then let us know what you think.For perspective from Educational Leadership, see the April 2007 issue, “The Prepared Graduate”, particularly the articles “The Challenge of College Readiness” and “What About Those Who Don’t Go?”

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Too often I hear the reasoning for practice being “because they need to know this (or do this) in college”. The practice is seldom examined as to whether it is a sound pedagogy for teaching high school students. (In some cases, it is not a sound pedagogy for college students!) Often, we have only managed to further alienate our students who do not plan on college as an option. Certainly, we need to prepare students for post-secondary options, however, we should stop treating high school as only a stopgap between middle school and college with no purpose of its own in preparing students for life.

Posted by: Marlene | January 17, 2008 at 10:55 PM

I look forward to the day when high schools will brag about the number of graduates who DON’T have to go on to college. If high school were more useful fewer graduates would have to go on to college. The current college preparatory curriculum is useless in the work world. We can prepare kids for the work world in high school

Posted by: Larry Schlack, Kalamazoo, Michigan | January 18, 2008 at 03:37 PM

Of course college is important…….if you plan to become a teacher, a doctor, an engineer, an attorney, or enter into a profession that requires specific training at a level beyond high school. But not everyone wants to enter into one of these fields of endeavor. There are many who are talented in the arts, music and other fields that need post-secondary training, but not in a college/university setting.
With the current emphasis on testing we no longer have the time, let alone the energy to teach our students to be good citizens, to balance their checkbooks, to study geography so they know where in the world they are, or to learn about such things as the fabulous world of culinary arts or fashion design.
It is time we took a close look at the damage being done to our students by emphasizing that college=success. That is definitely not true. Look at Bill Gates and others who either did not attend college or dropped out prior to completing their studies. And, we certainly would not label them as failures. College is not the only pathway to success and it is time that politicians and educators acknowledged this fact!

Posted by: Janet | January 18, 2008 at 04:04 PM

Take a look at any high school’s course offerings. Are there any courses that are specifically designed to assist students with “real-life” challenges: writing resumes, determining the cost of financing a home, searching want ads for apartments, etc.? If these skills are embedded in college-prep courses, then students are getting the best of both worlds: preparation for college coursework and for the world outside of college.If the school doesn’t have these skills incorporated into the current curricular offerings, seek help. Ask a principal, guidance counselor, community leader, etc. to establish at least some electives in that school to help all students be ready to confront life head-on!

Posted by: Rusha | January 18, 2008 at 04:59 PM

At the risk of duplicating arguments already covered by others in the other comment threads linked above, I’d like to make two observations.First, it’s true that many kids don’t go to college. They should have the opportunity to pursue preparation for their post-high school lives that will be relevant to them and enhance their success in the field they actually choose, rather than a hypothetical future that involves a four-year college.

Second, though, the viable career options for adults without a college education are rapidly decreasing in number. I’m not convinced that pushing all kids to pursue higher education – whether two-year or four-year – is a bad idea.

The strength of vocational programs, of course, is that it links these two concerns, connecting kids who won’t go to college with careers that will make it OK for them to have not gone to college. This means living-wage, skilled work, which does require training and apprenticeship, in most cases.

But I don’t think it will work to just offer “career” education without a specific skilled trade in mind, because of the decreasing job prospects in (what’s classified as) unskilled work.

Posted by: Eduleadership | January 18, 2008 at 09:36 PM

To change or not to change?

anewstepforward — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:48:44 +0000

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”

–Gen. Eric Shinseki,
former Army Chief of Staff

Malnutrition and Children…what can we do?

anewstepforward — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:40:56 +0000

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Back to Story – Help

Malnutrition Responsible for a Third of Child Deaths Worldwide

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay ReporterThu Jan 17, 5:02 PM ET

THURSDAY, Jan. 17 (HealthDay News) — A international epidemic of maternal and childhood malnutrition accounts for more than one-third of childhood deaths and 11 percent of the world’s disease burden, researchers report.

“The key messages here are that the international nutrition system is fragmented and dysfunctional, and reform is needed,” lead researcher Dr. Robert Black, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said during a news conference Wednesday. “The problems are long standing and embedded in organizational structure, but a concerted effort can provide greater progress and accountability. Progress is possible.”

Black was lead author of a special series on maternal and child malnutrition appearing online Jan. 17 in The Lancet.

The issue was hailed by different development agencies at the news conference.

“[The World Bank] does agree with the conclusions in the series. They have huge implications for the architecture of an international nutrition system,” said Joy Phumaphi, vice president and network head of human development at the World Bank. “We want to associate ourselves with the report.”

According to Kent Hill, assistant administrator for global health at USAID, there are some 852 million chronically hungry people living in the world today, and roughly half are children. Even though many can eat enough to ward off hunger, many still don’t get the nutrition necessary for growth and development. Mothers and children are the most vulnerable, Hill added.

The quandary has far-reaching consequences for individuals, societies and economies, the experts said.

“Malnutrition and nutrition as a whole is an economic imperative,” Phumaphi said. Nutrition affects productivity as well as cognitive functioning and performance in school. “It also increases health costs and, therefore, has catastrophic implications,” she noted.

According to Jayaseelan Naidoo, board chairman of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), in the absence of proper nutrition, many people are abandoning therapy for HIV/AIDS because of side effects.

The Lancet series starts off with a paper from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore and Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan, which finds that one-third of child deaths and 11 percent of the total disease burden globally are a result of maternal and child malnutrition.

Deficiencies in vitamin A and zinc had the greatest effect among the micronutrients studied and caused 0.6 million and 0.4 million deaths, respectively, in 2005. Deficiencies in iodine and iron are of lesser concern because of successful interventions. But suboptimal breast-feeding is estimated to be responsible for 1.4 million child deaths worldwide.

“We concur with the report that the first six months of a child’s life should be exclusively focused on breast-feeding,” Naidoo said.

The second study reported that poor fetal growth or stunting during a child’s first two years of life can lead to shorter adult height, lower school attendance and reduced adult income potential. Better nutrition can remedy much of this.

Other researchers found that implementing existing nutrition-related interventions for mothers and children could prevent one-quarter of all child deaths in the 36 countries with the most severe deficits. Breast-feeding counseling and vitamin A supplementation would provide the greatest boost.

The fourth study found that 80 percent of undernourished children worldwide live in just 20 countries. The final paper reported that the international nutrition system is fragmented and needs reform.

“We need to take this amazing piece of work and translate it into practical, measurable results,” Naidoo said.

But in addition, said other experts, the world needs better knowledge.

“As much as we know about food, we know very little about the science of food,” said Dr. Tadataka Yamada, president of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “In a sense, nutrition has been a little bit of a fractious community, because the less you know, the more your opinion counts. We need new knowledge in nutrition, and we have to invest in this because that will allow other investments we make in nutrition to be wisely and strategically placed.”

More information

Visit the World Health Organization for more on nutrition and malnutrition.

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Poverty is seen and heard in the classroom

anewstepforward — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 06:37:13 +0000

www.jsonline.com | Return to regular view

Original Story URL:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=708208

Poverty is seen and heard in the classroom

Posted: Jan. 16, 2008

Eugene Kane

Little stomachs grumbling.

That’s what a Milwaukee schoolteacher once told me was the hardest part of working in a school system with so many poor children.

Some mornings, she could hear the little stomachs grumbling. “It’s enough to break your heart,” was how she put it.

At the time, it surprised me. After all, many poor children in Milwaukee Public Schools qualify for free breakfast and lunch programs, don’t they?

But the reality of a school system where one out of every three school-age children live with a family in poverty – according to U.S. Census figures released last week – is that many students fall through the cracks.

Some kids simply never get breakfast because their school bus doesn’t get to the building in time. Other places, some kids are finicky eaters who never learned the importance of a good breakfast, so they go hungry. Another heartbreaking reality is many poor children are raised in households with one struggling parent where feeding children a hearty breakfast isn’t a priority.

Wearing shabby clothing is another part of being a poor student.

When a student wears shabby clothing, or out-of-date clothing or ill-fitting clothing picked straight from the Goodwill bin, other kids notice. When poor children show up for class in shabby clothing, they are often made the butt of jokes from classmates. Even as young as elementary school, there is a fashion competition among students where kids tease the ones who don’t have the latest sneakers or outfits.

It doesn’t even matter if most of the kids are poor and can’t afford new clothing. Someone always becomes the brunt of the joke.

Another teacher at a Milwaukee middle school once told me the introduction of a uniform dress code was the best thing to happen for some of her students. They no longer had to worry about being teased about their clothes because everyone wore the same thing.

She said some kids were so self-conscious about their clothing, sometimes they even stayed home.

Many times, poor kids from houses where the heat and lights are turned off consider school a sanctuary from their home life. When the school day ends and they have to go back home, it almost seems like punishment.

Poor children have toothaches, infections, bruises, chronic ailments and other health problems that can go unaddressed far too long. Poor children don’t have lots of books to read at home, but they do have television, which shows them a world filled with the kind of things they can’t have.

Poor children seldom see many successful people in their neighborhood other than the ones who sell drugs or intimidate their neighbors. Many poor children have seen violence up-close and personal, but they don’t have counselors or psychiatrists they can talk to, to make sense out of it all.

One out of every three school-age kids in Milwaukee comes from a poor family, which means they face the kind of hardship that you can understand only if you are unfortunate enough to be born to parents with no money. It’s not their fault, but poverty can scar these children in profound ways.

Many of our greatest Americans were poor children once; I think their stories need to be told to today’s poor kids so they realize poverty does not have to define them for the rest of their lives.

As long as they can ignore the grumbling in their stomachs and as long as the rest of us don’t give up on them.

Contact Eugene Kane at (414) 223-5521 or ekane@journalsentinel.com.

Archive

Poverty is seen and heard in the classroom   (1/17/2008)
Game gives a lesson about life’s fumbles   (1/15/2008)
‘Body Worlds’ will help many lose bad habits   (1/10/2008)
Clemens, Bonds have same problem   (1/8/2008)

From the Jan. 17, 2008 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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A way that you can make a difference…

anewstepforward — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 02:41:39 +0000

It's been almost a year since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and destroyed huge sections of the city of New Orleans. Among those who experienced terrible damage were students and faculty at New Orleans Baptist Seminary. Among the extensive damage to homes and other facilities, many students and professors had their entire libraries destroyed by the flooding.

Now that the students and faculty are returning to New Orleans to resume seminary operations, I'd like to encourage you to join me in offering a helping hand to these ministry colleagues who have lost libraries. Let's send quality books that can be used to start rebuilding those collections. Jerry Barlow, who is Dean of Graduate Studies as well as a preaching professor, has agreed to receive all book shipments and help in distributing the donated books to students and profs who need them. (Among the profs who lost libraries, the disciplines represented include preaching, pastoral care, Old Testament and New Testament.)

So pastors, take a look at your library and see if there are some good books you can share with fellow ministers in need. (And if there are any publishers reading this, here's a chance to clear out part of that warehouse!) Pack your donated books and send them to:

Preaching Books Project
c/o Dr. Jerry Barlow
New Orleans Baptist Seminary
3939 Gentilly Blvd.
New Orleans, LA 70126

I've already got five boxes ready to go to New Orleans from my own books. I hope you'll join me!

Michael Duduit, Editor
michael@preaching.com
www.michaelduduit.com

Not all father’s are deadbeats…

anewstepforward — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:26:46 +0000

Anybody in Education, Psychology, Sociology, Social Work or other professional careers that deal with children and families know the hazard of so many fathers that have decided to not take part in the lives of their children. It has devastating effects on the lives of the children as they are growing up. Here I am talking about more than just a financial commitment but also a commitment of emotional support and the support of personal involvement. You do not find the positive stories of a father and his children very often in the media. Read the following and be encouraged that there are still fathers that will not give up the joy of fatherhood. This is a great story as we approach Father's Day!

Chris Gardner shows off his crooked finger from making over 240 calls on the average day during his sales career.

Rags to riches tale writes itself

Will Smith to play man who went from homeless to millionaire

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) — It was just a movie set, but in a moment it showed Chris Gardner where he'd been — and how far he'd come.

There with actor Will Smith — who is playing Gardner, a former homeless man turned millionaire — Gardner stood in what looked like the train station bathroom where he once slept a quarter century ago.

Suddenly he was overcome with memories of teaching his 2-year-old son to never, ever open the locked bathroom door, no matter how hard someone pounded on the other side. It didn't matter that he now had three homes — one a condo in New York's Trump Tower — or that he'd gone from selling his own blood to buying Michael Jordan's car.

"I had to get out of there," he said.

The story of how the 52-year-old Gardner did just that, climbed out of homelessness and became a millionaire stockbroker with his own 15-employee Chicago firm, is being turned into a motion picture, slated for release in December. It's also the subject of Gardner's own just-released book, "The Pursuit of Happyness." The unique spelling of "happiness" is intentional.

Even in the realm of rags-to-riches tales, Gardner's story is unique. Take, for example, the events that led to his descent into homelessness.

A medical supplies salesman barely making enough money to support his girlfriend and baby, Gardner had one of those Hollywood moments in a San Francisco, California, parking lot in 1981 when he spotted a man looking for a place to park his red Ferrari.

"I said to him, 'You can have my place but I've got to ask you two questions. What do you do and how do you do it?' " recalled Gardner.

The man was a stockbroker. Gardner didn't know a single stockbroker or even what one did. But the man said he made $80,000 a month — $50,000 more than Gardner made a year.

Gardner found a brokerage firm willing to hire him and quit his job. But when he showed up for work he learned the guy who'd hired him had been fired. Gardner's job was gone.

Then, days before a scheduled interview with Dean Witter, a loud fight with his girlfriend brought the police to his door. The next thing Gardner knew they were asking him for $1,200 to clear up some unpaid parking tickets.

They may as well have asked for $12 million. Gardner spent 10 days in jail.

When he was released, his girlfriend and son were gone. He had no money, no home and the only clothes he had for his job interview the next day were the ones he wore to jail.

How was he going to explain showing up wearing jeans and paint-splattered Adidas shoes?

"I couldn't think of nothing that could top the truth," he said. He went with that and got the job.

A few months later came a knock on the door of the boarding house where he was staying.

"It's my ex and, guess what, she doesn't want the baby any more, here." he said. "The boarding house does not allow children. That's how we became homeless."

Some nights they stayed in a $25-a-night hotel, a park or under his desk at work. And a few nights were spent in an Oakland, California, Bay Area Rapid Transit station.

"I had to teach my little boy how to play a game and the game is called SHHHH," he said. "That means no matter what anybody says on the other side of that door, no matter how much noise they make or what they threaten, we ain't here, OK?"

Finally, they moved into a homeless hotel in San Francisco run by Glide Memorial United Methodist Church.

"There were no keys, so every day you take everything with you," said Gardner. "For a year, I'd take my son, his stroller, a big duffel bag with all his clothes in it, my briefcase, an umbrella, the biggest bag of Pampers in the world, one suit on my back and one suit in a hanging bag and we'd hit it every day."

When it rained, he covered the stroller with plastic sheets he'd picked up from dry cleaners.

Gardner told his co-workers nothing.

He also distinguished himself from others who turned to Glide for food and shelter.

"If you saw a man with a child, that was rare, incredibly rare," said the Rev. Cecil Williams, Glide's pastor. "I remember discussions about him, about how that man really loves that boy because he won't let him get away from him, he won't push him aside."

Day care took a huge chunk of his meager stockbroker trainee salary, and it took Gardner about a year to save enough to move himself and his son into their own home. From there, his career blossomed, and in 1987 he opened his own firm in Chicago.

Today, signs of his success are everywhere, starting with an office that includes a gleaming desk made of a DC-10 tail wing, African art work, boxing gloves and photographs signed by Muhammad Ali. Sharing space with pictures of his adult son and daughter are photographs of Gardner with Nelson Mandela, and a vase full of dirt that Gardner brought from Mandela's yard after visiting the former South Africa president.

He no longer has the Ferrari he bought from Jordan.

Gardner, who never went to college, has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to education, writing checks for as much as $25,000 to teachers, janitors, bus drivers and others who work at schools.

Gardner is focusing much of his attention now on South Africa, trying to persuade major investors to invest $1 billion there — an effort praised by South African officials.

"In the current state of our economy, creating an investment fund is critical," said Yusuf Omar, South African Consul General in Chicago, who recently stopped by Gardner's office.

For Gardner, helping South Africans pull themselves up makes perfect sense.

"Everything I've learned working on Wall Street, 25 years, to be able to make a difference in the lives of a lot of people and we all make money, it (doesn't) get any better than that," he said.Gardner stands in front of his desk, which is a tail wing of a DC-10 airliner, in his Chicago office.

Gardner stands in front of his desk, which is a tail wing of a DC-10 airliner, in his Chicago office.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/26/homeless.millionaire.ap/index.html

Pixar Cars is out in Theaters! It is hard to find movies with good family values and also a movie that an adult as well as a child could enjoy. Most reviews are saying that this is sure to be a classic. Not pushing for monetary gain…but pushing again because this blog is a resource for its readers for the newest ideas on the market for building up children and families!

Our world is changing every day, are we preparing students for that type of world?

anewstepforward — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:46:42 +0000

"The Da Vici Code in its first weekend made $77 million. It finished just behind a gas station in Queens."

David Letterman