Teacher Training and Parent Awareness ... using Six Conversations with Enrique Gonzalez

Visit this article about the Academy

I recently toured East Side High School in Newark, NJ and I met an innovative principal (who has coordinated an academy inside the larger high school).  
I recommended the following training materials (based on videos made by Erik Friedl, a documentary filmmaker in Los Angeles).  

The key points:
a) the videos give tours of two schools (middle and high).
b) the principal, Enrique Gonzalez, gives his perspectives about how to personalize the experience of school.
c) viewers can use these videos to guide discussions about "where can we take our school." 

NIGHTINGALE PROJECT  http://media.newlearninginstitute.org/downloads/NightingaleInitiative.pdf

The 23 Megabyte download

How can a community (neighborhoods) be invited into a school?  Workshops provided input to make this interesting report (phase 1).

For more information, contact Enrique Gonzalez 

Address: 928 N Avenue 53, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Phone:(323) 254-3421
http://theindependenteducator.blogspot.com/2012/04/nightingale-middle-school-d3-lab-new.html

exg068@lausd.net    I recommend the documentary interviews that Enrique did with Erik Friedl ... located at the following links on Youtube

Night 1  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GArYtX4aGtM

"Most young people don't believe that school belongs to them.
We want the community to join us. The classroom is the extension of their living room."

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Night 2  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuYB07E7nIA

A tour with Nancy Chou in the D3 Lab: "Dream it, Design it, Do it."
Interview with Aaron Brest, a musician who graduated from Frida Kahlo High School.

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Night 3  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU95FjymhCs

"The students will put a smile on people's faces. They're preparing to visit a local convalescent home." 
The Night Hawk's Nest, made with discarded materials: "The children have taken ownership of this area."

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Night 4  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNW_XaC6DBY

"Kids learn about safety and they can apply the skills that they learn from other subjects. The kids are engaged here--we're preparing them to be citizens of the world."

"Around us there is poverty and hunger but the answer is in the schools where students can develop their thinking and analytical tools. Thanks to Elliot Washer, Nancy Chou and the staff at Nightingale middle School, who want us to become the best school in the nation. Let's be a model. Here's an alternative--please consider it."

Highland Park "Love of Learning"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A34AR57A1Eo

"Our principal is not a suit.  He is a man."  (student)

Phase One under way at Highland Park High School in Los Angeles, California. School principal Enrique Gonzalez offers an insider's look at a school-in-the-remaking and explores programs and innovation aimed at engaging and igniting the imagination of every student passing through Highland Park's portal. Emphasis is on the teachers' personal approach to understanding the needs, aptitude and aspirations of the individual student.

Enrique Gonzalez: exg0368@lausd.net or 323-254-3421

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Highland Park "Remaking"  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7htFyO57ljU

These interviews can support a discussion for teacher training and parent awareness of what is possible when a community invests in a school and when a school invites the community to come in.    Enrique has several insights about how to build connections with the local community.  His mobile phone contact is 909 456 9152

OTHER PROJECTS
How about a digital yearbook?  http://theindependenteducator.blogspot.com/2013/05/school-in-california-creates-pdf.html

What should teachers study (and prepare to present in class)? Paul Tough and James Heckman (a low-cost training program: "read articles by Paul Tough about James Heckman"

So, if you wanted to create a low-cost or no-cost training program for teachers, what would you ask the teachers to read and how would you structure the professional development?

a)  read some articles
b)  talk with a coach about the articles
c)  start applying the tips in your classes.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/474/transcript

SO, go ahead, learn more about Paul Tough.

Articles by Paul Tough

New York Times Magazine

“What If the Secret to Success Is Failure?” September 18, 2011
“What is good character? Is it something that can be taught in a formal way, in the classroom, or is it the responsibility of the family, something that is inculcated gradually over years of experience?”

“Education Reform’s Two-Month Warning” July 8, 2011
“Do we really want to accept that the best that the United States can do for those 1 million 5-year-olds, with 13 years and vast resources at our disposal, is to get 90,000 of them to proficiency in math, while we let the other 910,000 fail?”

“No, Seriously: No Excuses” July 7, 2011
“Why are some reformers resorting to excuses? Most likely for the same reason that urban educators from an earlier generation made excuses: successfully educating large numbers of low-income kids is very, very hard.

“Can Play Teach Self-Control?” September 25, 2009
“Over the last few years, a new buzz phrase has emerged among scholars and scientists who study early-childhood development, a phrase that sounds more as if it belongs in the boardroom than the classroom: executive function.”

“24/7 School Reform,” September 7, 2008
“In an election season when Democrats find themselves unusually unified on everything from tax policy to foreign affairs, one issue still divides them: education.”

“A Teachable Moment,” August 17, 2008
“While it is true that for decades the children of New Orleans toiled in a substandard school system, they have also continually faced countless other obstacles to success — inadequate health care, poorly educated parents, exposure to high rates of violent crime and a popular culture that often denigrates mainstream achievement.”

“What It Takes to Make a Student,” November 26, 2006
“The evidence is now overwhelming that if you take an average low-income child and put him into an average American public school, he will almost certainly come out poorly educated. What the small but growing number of successful schools demonstrate is that the public-school system accomplishes that result because we have built it that way.”

“The Harlem Project,” June 20, 2004
“Geoffrey Canada knew there were success stories out there. There were always reports in the newspapers about ‘special’ kids who ‘overcame the odds.’ Some brilliant teacher or charity or millionaire went into the ghetto and found 100 kids and educated them and turned their lives around. But those stories seemed counterproductive to Canada. Instead of helping some kids beat the odds, he thought, why don’t we just change the odds?”

Back to School
(How Children Succeed and the research that went into it)
September 14, 2012



Here is the THIS AMERICAN LIFE radio segment