On Saturday, November 2nd—bright
and early in the morning (especially since I live 45 minutes away!)—I attended
Rhode Island College’s 16th Annual Promising Practices event.
I
arrived early that
morning to make sure I had enough time to get checked in and settled, but as it
turned out, there wasn’t much of a check-in!
After grabbing my nametag (which I thankfully discovered had my session
titles on it, because I realized too late that my ticket did not have them
listed), I wound up having plenty of time to find a seat near classmates from
both of my classes, and chat. Looking
around, it seemed like a large portion of those in attendance were students
from RIC. Despite some of the issues raised
during our class discussion of the event, I found the day to be relatively
interesting. As we’ve already discussed
our impressions of the Plenary Session (and briefly, the keynote speaker) in
class, I am going to focus on the individual breakout sessions I attended.
After the Plenary Session, I
headed off to the first session I selected, which was Citizenship I: “Children
in Central American Migrant Families: Lessons Learned from a University-Community
Collaboration” & “Building an Architecture of College Inclusion for High
School Language Minority Students”. I
found this session to be very interesting.
The first presenter was Prof. Kalina Brabeck. She discussed research on deportations of
undocumented immigrant parents its effects on the children (eating & sleep
changes, depression, anxiety, academic decline, developmental delays), and the
effects of living in undocumented status on children (low social support, stress,
psychological distress, low access to services, low rates of care, cognitive
delay by as much as 3 years). In all the
political discussions surrounding immigration, I feel that the children are
rarely considered. And like the children
of Mott Haven that Jonathan Kozol sheds light on in “Amazing Grace”, these immigrant
children are the victims of the broken immigration
system, AND—usually—poverty. The children are affected both
personally and academically, and become stuck in a cycle that is tough to break
free from. This is tackled with
workshops through the Migration and Human Rights Project, which give the
community correct information over media information, help families in creating
plans in the event of potential deportation, and more.
The second part of the presentation
discussed Project ExCEL here at Rhode Island College. It is a program that offers access to students
who performed well in high school, but are generally discouraged from attending
four-year universities because of their lack of mainstream English course achievements as non-native speakers. The option for
these students is usually dropping out, or a remedial community college
education. We learned with Virginia Collier that
academic language proficiency takes 5-7 years to master, and that “academic
skills developed in the first language tend to automatically transfer to the
second language.” Prof. Ramirez echoed
this when he said that these high rates of drop out or remedial community
college occur when ESL students are mainstreamed without access to studying in
their home language. Collier would
definitely approve of the Project ExCEL program, which offers supporting
courses to bilingual students to encourage a sense of community and academic
success. Also, as I mentioned in class, Prof. Ramirez commented that we can't judge the effectiveness of the system based on the achievements of the exceptions (like Mayor Tavares). Real celebration will be when we don't need to recognize that a Latino or African American "made it." I wrote this down in the session because it is so true and really struck me, especially after the Plenary Session panel—and then I watched the Tim Wise video! This is exactly what Wise was saying in his interview in regards to racial equity.
The second session I
attended was “Engaging Students in Anti-Bullying Efforts”, with presenters
Rebecca Ferry and Joseph Pirraglia. The
presenters showed us the anti-bullying program they developed at
Barrington Middle School. Even though
the presentation was not specifically LGBT focused, the “Safe Spaces” reading
that we did came to my mind during the presentation. At the beginning of the article, it says, “To
the extent that teachers … create an atmosphere in which difference is not only
tolerated but expected, explored, and embraced, students will be more likely to
develop perspectives that result in respectful behaviors.” This is what happened at Barrington Middle
School. The presenters commented that
kids can’t achieve if they don’t feel safe, and no learning will happen. So they worked within their teams to create
an environment where students feel safe and comfortable sharing and
discussing. They did this through team
building activities to create a culture, and by really listening to kids in the
halls and at lunch to pick up on what’s going on, so that they could address
the issues. It started small, but the
students embraced it and ran with the activities, including a pledge, video, song, skits, and more. As a result, the students are better
connected to each other, there is improved academic success, and the kids are
standing up for one another and are aware of social issues that they see pop
up.
The presenters acknowledged
that a big part of it is a change of culture, and a challenge is getting over
the awkwardness of talking about social issues.
This made me think of Johnson: “You can’t deal with a problem if you
don’t name it; once you name it, you can think, talk, and write about it. You can make sense of it by seeing how it’s
connected to other things that explain it and point toward a solution.” By creating the safe space atmosphere in
their teams, and becoming comfortable with talking about the social issues
surrounding bullying, the students were able to build an understanding and a
culture of respect in their school.
The final session I attended
was “The Central Falls School District and RIC School of Social Work
Collaborative: Engaging Students in the Achievement of Academic Success”. The panel discussed the collaboration that
puts Social Work students into Central Falls High School as interns, offering
additional support to at-risk students.
Prior to this collaboration, the high school had only ONE social worker
for up to 800 students. I don’t know if
this is a common practice, but it seems crazy to me! What a work load for that social worker,
particularly in a school with so many issues with substance abuse,
homelessness, teenage parents, and domestic violence. It was great to see how the social work
interns are able to have immersive, real-world experiences with the students
and the school, and be able to go back to class and instructors for support in
working through the tough problems they are encountering. I can see how the collaboration is an
effective learning model both for the high school and for RIC students, and I
believe the collaboration with Secondary Education will be just as beneficial.
One thing I made note of is
that the Vice Principal of CFHS said that attendance at the high school is a
challenge, and that it is a community issue.
The social worker, interns, teachers, and even the VP himself have gone
on home visits to reinforce the importance of regular attendance to the student
and to their family. The social worker
said that families tend to be apprehensive about him at first because they aren’t
sure of his role, but their relationship builds once they understand that he is
there to help. This seems very Delpit to
me, because the school is making an effort to teach the rules and codes of
power to the student and the families to ensure the students academic and
future success.
In hindsight, even though
the sessions I selected were interesting, I wish I had selected some of the
other ones. Having heard about a few of
them from others, I think there were ones that I may have enjoyed more. Christina’s explanation of the “Star Power” game sounded like an interesting experience.
Also, the Advocacy II: “Creating Caring and Committed Anti-bullying
Classes” & “Trans*Action: Tools for a Transgender Ally” sounded like great
and informative presentations in that final session! Ultimately, I feel that the conference was a
beneficial experience for me to have, particularly as a part of this
class. Attending the conference equipped
with the insight gained from our class material allowed me to see the
information presented in a different, or maybe enhanced, way.
How was your day? :)
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