For her

This is my inspiration. I love you very much mamas.  Be ready.

Education and Communication - Why this?

   First off...Education is THE most important aspect of our lives.  Without it, nothing gets done.  What are some of the problems that we see with Education?

1. Education is totally relevant to location.  This doesn't just mean a geographic location, physical street address, but also the people that are there - the administration, teachers and students.  This may seem silly or obvious but what it means is that people are dependant on what is going on around them and though they may technically have the ability to change what goes on at their local schools, the reality is that change seems near impossible.  
2. Education is only as useful as the people who teach it - once again something obvious.  Students only learn what teachers are willing to teach.  The attitude of teachers is in direct relationship with their personal lives: emotional status, financial order, and experience play key roles in what their students will learn from them.  
3. Parents don't place a priority on education.  Parents see education as a babysitter...this automatically demeans the position of teacher and puts them behind the 8 ball.  On top of that, the majority of teachers realize that and may teach according to what's expected of them.  

     This illustrates a point that we have taken to heart - people will do what is expected of them.  Children will rise or fall to the expectations that are put to them.  Teachers as well.  Parents are the one that exercise the most control of this entire situation.  Parents place the expectations on their children as students to succeed or to fail.  Parents, through their actions, also place expectations on the teacher - If a parent does not stay in contact with a teacher to show that they are involved in their children's lives, the teacher just goes on with what they are doing.  This leads to a sort of apathy...not apathetic in the sense of a destructive behavior but one that kind of affirms what they are doing-that everything is status quo when in reality it could be changed for the better. This brings me to my point:  In this triadic relationship between educator(educational system), student, and parent, who really has the power?  Who has the responsibility to the other 2 to assure that people are getting the information that they need?  Why the hell can't parents be more involved in their children's lives and what is it about this that makes people think that once they drop their kids off at school that, that's that?

     Now what are we going to do about this?  Education is something that gets a bad rap but the truth is that people like myself who left school or dropped out are responsible for those actions ourselves.  We can make up all the excuses that we want about bad teachers and subjects that we'll never need in real life (Algebra, any one?) but the bottom line is that I was scared about something...personally, I think the feeling of failure was much stronger than the idea that I could learn.  It robbed me but only because I gave it my wallet.

   What went on was something that could have been fixed if it had been called into question at an early enough time.  My parents are great parents.  Like all families we have had our disagreements but I wouldn't trade them for anyone on earth.  They raised my brother, sister, and I as well as they could.  They were involved in our lives at school, they provided us plenty of opportunity growing up and there was lots of love in the household.  What I learned to do was to do things at a minimum so that they would leave me be.  If there was anything that I wish they would have done differently, it would have been to not let me get away with things as much.  They loved me so much, they would ease on me when I didn't do what I was supposed to.

     Here's the thing, it all falls on me.  I realized this but only within the last 5 years - coincidentally, the amount of years that my daughter has been on Earth.  My parents expected great things from me and I will fulfill them, it's just gonna take me a little longer than they had hoped for.  In turn, great things are expected of our children.  Lillie is growing up with that and Alexa is beginning to realize that and is starting to fulfill some of that promise.  For her, life has been tough and I wish to hell it hadn't been so tough...but she's going to do great things because she has lived through this and is seeing how things can be if we expect great things from her.  As parents, we need to expect great things from our kids.

     So what does this mean?  This means that we are going to do what we can to change the culture of education.  Education itself can be amazing...maybe not always fun but even things we love aren't always fun.  How do we get children to understand that education isn't just about school?  How do we get children to understand that there are expectations of them and of those expectations, Education is the first and foremost of them?  Why do children fail when in reality, failure isn't bad...it's a learning tool.  Failure isn't actually as scary as we have been taught to believe...it's accepting failure that is the scary part.  People who expect and accept failure are not acceptable.  I don't mean that we go out and eliminate these people but what we have to do is create a culture where this mentality is unacceptable, where failure is truly looked at as a tool to succeed.  It's given lip service but when in early classrooms, failure is slowly reinforced with shame and embarrassment.  Kids can be jerks and some love nothing more than feeling better about themselves by putting others down (Bullying) - This is one of those things that exhibits people's willingness to accept failure: They decide that failure is acceptable because they slap other people down as soon as they can.
  
     How do we encourage success?  Parents.  Parents.  Parents and Parents.  Parents have to become more involved, ESPECIALLY at the early stages of education. They need to be on top of their kids so that their kids learn early on that they are expected to be great and early on how failure is OK as long as they don't get frustrated and that they keep moving forward after they experience that failure.  Posters and slogans don't mean much when it isn't truly encouraged.  We need to teach kids HOW to learn and HOW to act responsibly towards each other.  Kids need to really learn accountability and what it means to be person of greatness.  What does it mean to be a person of greatness?  Honestly, I don't know.  I do know that we need to look at people we think are great.  We need to show children that we expect them to be great.  We need to truly understand that children will be great if we expect them to be great.

     This means that Teachers need to be great.  Teachers need to be more than competent.  This may not mean that they graduate top of their class or that they have 50 years of teaching experience.  Hell, I'm not sure if people need a degree.  Of course I don't know how well that works, but we want people who can teach the hell out of some kids.  One of our proposals is - 3 people at the head of a class...a Certified Teacher, and 2 T.A.'s or 2 people of differing opinions that would be able to show children a total of 3 different POV's.  This involves a highly interactive relationship between the 3 teaching figures and automatically improves what the children are learning because the children will learn 3 POV's and all the information that goes with those 3 POV's.  This would be ideal for older students but it may work with younger students in the sense that broken up groups can be shown things by each teacher (reading to small groups, math concepts, things of that nature).  The bottom line is Teachers need to be trained thoroughly in how to teach - right down to how to get children to pull out a piece of paper and pencil and be ready for class.

       The reality of the situation is this:  Our world is becoming more and more isolated and the loudest voices belong to those people who are ready to just shit on everyone else.  The idea of being out for yourself dismisses 6.5 billion other people who could possibly help.  On top of that, this selfishness turns people into tools to be used by those that want to take advantage of people.  We need to teach them to not be tools...they need to learn how to think for themselves.  We need to give children tools so that they don't become tools.

Initial plan for our program

The Students
The Afterschool program - This is a 4 hour after school day.  Keep this in mind:  This is NOT set in stone...one of the things that we are trying to teach is that these subjects are NOT independent of each other...often, these subjects will be taught simultaneously.  It just helps people to see what we are trying to get across.

• 30 minutes - Problem solving, conflict resolution, and thinking skills.
• 30 minutes - Creative thinking...What does this entail?
• 45 minutes - Reading skills
• 45 minutes - Math skills
• 45 minutes - Creative learning (Sciences, Music, Art, World Religions, Engineering, etc..)
• 45 minutes - Research skills, Musicianship, Leadership, Etc...

Now, the key here is Triads.  The students would be matched up in Triads so that they learned to help each other.  On top of that, the ideal situation would be 3 teaching positions at once...1 teacher and 2 aides.  The 1st hour of class would be kind of an open session.  All 3 teachers interacting with the students to:

1.      Decompress from the actual school day
2.      Teach the students how to interact with one another
3.      Allow 3 POV on any one situation that can be presented to them

This also allows the class size to increase.  Because of how we are going to set this up, the idea of student to teacher ratio is something that would actually benefit from a bigger class.  Part of what we are teaching is how to lead.  Large groups of kids sounds daunting but we are teaching these kids how to be leaders; If they cannot work amongst themselves then we will have failed.


The Parents
In order for their children to be enrolled in this afterschool program, Parents will be required to attend classes 2 nights a week.  These classes will initially contain:

•      16 week parent program course - 1 of the nights per week:  The premise of this class is that parents simply need to be more involved in their children's lives.  This class is actually taught as part of a program usually for at risk teens.  However, there are things in this program that will help every parent who is willing to listen.  These things will lay the groundwork for everything else we will do. 

•      Lessons in the classes their children will be learning the following week.  This will allow the parents to see what their children will be studying coming up.  They will know what projects their children are going to be working on as well as brush up on these skills so that they do not become lost when the time comes to help their children.  This helps with a couple of things:

1.      Parents are empowered to assist their children whenever they have questions about their homework.  
2.      Parents cannot help but stay involved with their children's activity because they have to know what is going on so that they can stay a part of the class.

     Part of the classes for parents will be things like cooking for the home and teaching how to make meals as a family, group outings to museums and points of interest.  The idea is that these parents become friends to one another and a community spawns from this.  On top of that, things like Financial Planning, Organizational skills, and anything that parents would be willing to teach one another that would help everyone else would be put on the table.  On top of that, the leadership aspect of their children's learning would be taught to the parents.


Teachers and Administration
Teachers and Administration will be one and the same.  No administration will be just administrators and no teachers will just teach.  They are to be interchangeable...The resources are such that everyone is on equal footing.  All programs and curriculum will be worked out among the teachers that are teaching in the same classroom.  Teachers and Administrators don't have to agree with the core values of the program, but those values must resonate with them.  The noble cause is something that they must be in alignment with.  Authenticity and transparency are of utmost importance.


We are trying to do more than teach students how to be better students or parents how to be better parents or teachers to teach a better way.  We are creating a movement...we want the future to be a place where people are more concerned about those around them than they are for themselves.  The world is in the state that it is in right now because people are too self-centered to worry about those around them.  We want to teach people to lead so that they can teach others to lead.  People will be better towards one another when they realize that they are responsible for and accountable to others.




Some notes:  Triads are key everywhere.  3 students per small group, 3 teachers per class (both students and parents), the initial triad of student - parents - teacher.  We will not fail each other if we have to hold each other up.