Lessons Learned on Inclusivity

by Blake O’Connor

Much to my excitement, angst, and disbelief, the culmination of a nearly seven month project had arrived. Among the chaos of shuffling students dressed as Dr. Seuss characters, construction paper, and books, I stopped my frantic running around at the sound of bus airbrakes and 250 second graders chatting and giggling as they marched to the gates of the Freedom High School (FHS) football stadium. They were here. In full suit, our varsity cheerleaders distributed notepads for students to write down new words, and stickers of Dr. Seuss characters. Orderly, they were escorted out onto the field by members of the FHS chapter of the National Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, where each student found an enthusiastic Student Government officer whose costume and sign matched that of their sticker.  Teachers followed closely behind as the FHS students led their groups to a Rhyme Time obstacle course, read-aloud “No Dragons for Tea”, sight word games, and other literacy-related exercises facilitated by members of Café Freedom, the leadership team behind the entire celebration. Everyone who had been a part of it was there – students, teachers, and administrators -between the bleachers, bringing the “I Feel the Need to Read” literacy project to a smashing close. Originating as an idea to put books in the hands of second graders and instill a love of reading, the project galvanized an entire school community.

While education has always been a personal priority, only after my participation in the Bezos Scholars Program (BSP) did I realize the extent to which education has shaped my values, identity, and aspirations. As part of BSP – a leadership development program for 30 top public high school students and exceptional educators from across the U.S. and Africa – we attended the Aspen Ideas Festival, where we participated in sessions and had small group meetings with change-makers from around the world. At nearly every session, each speaker connected education to the issue discussed on stage – from poverty to public health. After returning to Florida, I was inspired to improve reading opportunities for a demographic to which I could relate: below-level second grade readers at Title I schools. I had read below level after moving from a low to high performing school district. Fortunately, I was able to catch up because I had access to supportive teachers and parents, and books inside and outside the classroom. Knowing that 35 percent of my district’s students read below grade level upon entering 3rd grade, my assistant principal (a Bezos Educator Scholar) and I began planning the “I Feel the Need to Read” literacy project, which mobilized high school students as reading mentors and promoted literacy education within the community. Since the founding year, four other high schools have been engaged, over 4,000 second graders have been served, and a service-learning course has been launched at FHS.

Leading the I Feel the Need to Read program affirmed my belief that every child has the ability to learn regardless of their background. As every child should be given the opportunity to learn, every team member should be given the opportunity to contribute. The inclusion of students, teachers, and administrators better informed our planning process and created a community of literacy champions that have driven the program over the past four years. This experience I had with inclusion during the course of the project provided me with a foundation to reflect on the importance and see applications of inclusion in learning how to be a good leader.

In college, I’ve identified role models based on their leadership style. What most, if not all, of them   have had in common, is a natural tendency to be inclusive in their work. They are aware of those that have a stake and that their ideas matter too. This inclusive approach creates space where diverse people share with and learn from each other. Inclusive leaders leverage diversity to breed innovative thinking as a disruptive force in the status quo. Much to my surprise, inclusive leaders are a dime a dozen. Unlike the instance of “I Feel the Need to Read,” simply including everyone in the process doesn’t guarantee excitement or results. Where there is diversity, there is potential for error, miscommunication, misunderstanding, and conflict. An inclusive leader avoids these obstacles, by creating a work space where people, regardless of background, “seek first to understand, then to be understood.”[1]

A few weeks back, Dr. Vicki Stocking, mentor and summer advisor at the Robertson Scholars Program, helped me differentiate between simply practicing inclusivity and using it as a tool for transformational leadership. She shared that Inclusivity is the first step to creating a space where individuals are confident in their own identity, experience, and strengths, and understand their role in a collective force toward meaningful impact. In the process, inclusive leaders foster a culture of equality, feedback, and transparency within a team.

We are starting to see inclusivity catch on in organizations that prioritize a presence of diversity. However, including a diverse set of people or stakeholders is not the end to which a team should aspire, but instead is a means to integration.

Undeniably, the status quo of our collective educational system is not meeting our own expectations. But, rather than collaborating toward a system better suited for our children and our world, we are pitted against each other, pointing fingers at the other, and siloed by our own initiatives in pursuit of a noble vision. Why not work together? Here’s a call for inclusive leadership in each level of our education system. At the top, we need inclusive leaders integrating researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to share, test, and implement the policies and pedagogies that are best for student learning. In a school, we need inclusive leaders to form communities of students, parents, teachers, and administrators designed for student success. Since A Nation at Risk, we have seen unsatisfactory change. Collectively, we in education know what needs to be done. So, collectively, let’s do it.

The Bezos Scholars Program @ the Aspen Institute is a year-long leadership development program for public high school juniors and educators to put their education into action. It begins with a scholarship to the Aspen Ideas Festival and continues through the following school year when Bezos Scholar teams return home to launch sustainable, Local Ideas Festivals that transform their schools and communities. Learn more: www.bezosfamilyfoundation.org/Scholars, www.facebook.com/BSPAspen, twitter.com/BezosScholars 

Blake O’Connor is a senior studying public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Inspired by his participation in the Bezos Scholars Program, Blake and Educator Scholar, Assistant Principal Rosemary Owens spearheaded the “I Feel the Need to Read” literacy festival at Freedom High School in Tampa, Florida to put books in the hands of Title I second graders and promote reading in the community. Since 2010, four high schools have been engaged and over 4,000 second graders have been served. In college, Blake has solidified a desire to make a positive impact in education as a summer teacher at Sunflower County Freedom Project, in his work with the Roosevelt Institute | Campus Network, and in independent research on social-emotional learning with the Duke School Research Partnership.

[1] Stephen R. Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Connecting the Elementary Toolkit to Models of Thinking

by Amy Hoffman

As a graduate student at Teachers College, Columbia University, I recently completed a course that  encompassed research-based theories on student thinking and learning. I was intrigued by the content matter and found myself reflecting on the elementary toolkit activities through the lens of a landscape of thinking skills. In case you are not familiar with the Elementary GoodWork Toolkit, it is a set of activities based on the original GoodWork Toolkit to introduce elementary-age students to GoodWork concepts. There are connections between models of thinking and Good Work:  when creating curriculum for young students, it is essential to give them opportunities to explore their thinking and learning and to self-reflect on a deep level about their learning processes.

In this blog entry, I explore the connections between visuospatial thinking and word mapping activities.  In my classroom, students use word mapping activities to research definitions and meanings for each of the 3 E’s and then construct a word web of their understanding. According to the organization Reading Rockets, “a word map is a visual organizer that promotes vocabulary development” (Reading Rockets, 2012). Word maps are used in classrooms to assist students in understanding abstract words and concepts. The use of word mapping in this activity allows students to construct a “spatial mental” model of the content being presented (Hegarty, Stull 2012). For students first encountering a complex concept such as Good Work, visuospatial thinking provides a means for grasping the concept that is accessible and age-appropriate for students.

Most recently, the students in my classroom engaged in a word mapping activity to help them further explore their understandings of Good Work terminology. I was able to develop a webquest (http://questgarden.com/146/51/5/120716111216/) for student use and to assist in keeping a structured eye on the content being searched. The webquest and modeling led the students to work in small groups to research multiple definitions of excellence, ethics and engagement and jot down notes of their thoughts surrounding what they were discovering. From there, the small groups of students were asked to turn their thoughts into word maps- creating a visual representation of their thoughts- the goal being a series of connected words surrounding each one of the 3E’s. Below is an example of a student’s word map:

In this example, when these young students were faced with the task of creating their own thoughts surrounding these complex ideas, they were at first apprehensive. For many, this was their first independent experience with exploring a concept using the Internet. Through continued discussion during the activity, I supported their research by guiding questions, “Can you make a personal connection to words?” “Are there any group members that have a different connection?”  Students were given the opportunity to discuss their experiences and explorations with each other, they were able to learn about multiple perspectives and eventually, they moved beyond their initial hesitations. At this young age, the students have had success in constructing meanings through guided partnership discussion and activities. The students have been able to find clear connections between themselves and others, discuss the meaning of true social and academic success, and begin to become excited about their future possibilities.

Visuospatial thinking skills are an essential part of a young child’s development. In giving students the opportunity to work on this development through discussion and activities, students are able to utilize their creative thinking to construct meaning of vocabulary as related to Good Work. I am looking forward to providing students with subsequent activities to enhance their thinking skills and to continue to make connections to Good Project ideas.

References

Frederiksen N., (1984). Implications of Cognitive Theory of Instruction in Problem

Solving. Review of Educational Research. 54 (3), pp.363-407.

Hegarty, M., & Stull, A., (2012). ‘Visuospatial Reasoning’. In: Holyoak, K., & Morrison, R. (ed), The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.606 – 630.

Marzano, Robert J. (1998). A theory-based meta-analysis of research on

instruction. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Educational Research Laboratory. Retrieved June 28, 2013, from http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/Instruction/5982RR_InstructionMeta_Analysis.pdf

Sifting Through Your Values

by Amma Marfo

This post, originally published in the blog, “The Dedicated Amateur”, is being reprinted here with permission from the author.

“I don’t just care about making you all good at your jobs, though that is really important. I also want you to be good people. That sounds really cheesy, I’m sure, but it’s important and it’s something I want to help with.”

The statement above is a rough excerpt from my speech at our student organization Fall Planning Day, one of our biggest training opportunities for student organization leaders on campus and a significant platform to get relevant information across to this segment of our student leader population. While we had sessions on procedural items such as reserving space, using our campus events calendar, and financial paperwork, I believe that values education and clarification deserves a place on that stage as well, so I incorporated a values exercise into my section of the day.

The link for the activity and accompanying resources will follow this post, but I do want to explain how we went about this process.

Students were given a packet of slips, thirty slips in all, and told to read through them all and spread them out on their table so all could be seen. Bit by bit, they were told to eliminate some of the values present by flipping them face-down, until five remained. Those five were the most important values to them. This exercise was completed in four rounds: identifying personal values, values as an organization member, values of the organization, and what values they want from OSAMP staff, SGA, and those who work with them.

It was this last part that I want to share here in this blog. We all have values that guide us as professionals, and we like to think those are the ones that students appreciate most. To get an idea of what guides the work of my fellow professionals, I took to Twitter and asked.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

 Amma Marfo @ammamarfo

If you had to distill the values with which you do your work down to three words, which three would you pick? #sachat #sagrad

7:23 AM – 10 Sep 2013

I was really excited to see the responses that I got from everyone, and put them into this Wordle for a more graphical representation of the words selected. Even without a common bank of values to choose from, the larger words will indicate which values rose to the top. Take a look to see which words recurred: “empathy”, “integrity”, “caring”, “service”, and “justice”.

 Now, take note of those words, in comparison to the ones that students deemed essential to good working relationships with student activities staff, organization advisors, and their SGA members who oversee many student organization processes:

Of particular note to me was the recurrence of the values “openness” and “honesty”. While students understand (at least in an academic sense) that we can’t always share all the information we have with them, they are also very aware when they’re being given the run-around, or even flat-out lied out. The degree to which this term came up helped me to remember to continue being straightforward with students- including saying “I don’t know” if I truly don’t know an answer.
Another important observation for me was the number of times that professional conduct and professional demeanor surfaced as a desirable value. We all want to have friendly relationships with students, and the degree to which we successfully create these friendly dynamics varies. But when it came down to it, and we asked close to 200 student leaders what they want from those who they work with, they asked for professionalism. Be it by asking for teaching or mentoring relationships, requesting quality work from us, or stressing their desire for hard work and commitment, they want us to be professional.

To be frank, when I look over this cloud again, I find that the values they appreciate, are ones I would like to see in them. We want our student leaders to approach their work professionally, and with the understanding that some initiatives and projects will take work. We want to learn from them, just as they want to learn from us. We would like them to be respectful. And, most common- we want them to be honest.

Do you see intersections between the two clouds? In my estimation, professionals and students alike value having good working relationships, understanding the feelings and thoughts of the parties involved, and being considerate of the opinions and developmental processes each side is experiencing. In the best case, we are all learning each day, whether we’re professionals or students. Being considerate of those learning moments could be essential to better understanding one another, and being able to work together better as offices, student organizations, agencies, and individuals. As I move forward in the year, I look forward to sharing these results with them, and framing the work we each do through the lens of the values they would like to see in us.

Do you incorporate values education into the work you do with your student leaders? What values do they find important? What values do you want to see in your own student leaders?

For more information on the Value Sort activity, a part of the GoodWork toolkit, click the button below:

Cracking the code: How the youngest generation is “Standing Up”

by Emily Weinstein and Paromita De

A pervasive narrative portrays contemporary youth as more plugged-in to their social networks than into social issues. Stand Up!: 75 Young Activists Who Rock the World And How You Can, Too! makes a case for the converse through its collection of stories about young people dedicated to making a difference. The new volume, edited by John Schlimm, shines a light on the dedication and determination of these youth and endeavors to motivate other young people to pursue activism. The book’s message – that “you can [do it], too” – is a sentiment we subscribe to as researchers who care deeply about youth engagement. Yet, in the process of highlighting inspiring stories of young activists, the book also raises important questions about who is civically engaged, and how they are getting involved. These questions, and lessons drawn from the volume, are crucial if we intend to widen the breadth of young people who are engaged.

The book’s vignettes portray activists who range in both age and interests. Featured youth include a brother and sister who started working to protect endangered species at ages 3 and 5, a 9 year-old who collects donated toys to be given to children who have lost their belongings in fires, a 14 year-old who raises awareness on water issues, and a college graduate who advocates nutritious eating habits for elementary school students by cultivating a student-tended garden. What unites these students is their passion – for each, an idea or issue is so captivating that it moves them to action. Similar to trends mentioned in Barendsen’s paper on Social Entrepreneurs, many of the young activists trace their passion to life-changing experiences, such as suffering from an illness or being exposed to other’s hardships.

Another common thread across many of the featured stories was the importance of “supporters” – often parents or other adults around them who could not only encourage their passion, but also serve as resources to these young activists. These adults played instrumental roles in helping youth actualize their civic goals: a mother who made an important connection with a non-profit group to incorporate her teenage son’s initiative to provide donations to veterans; a father who contacted a local news station to publicize his blind, 7-year-old son’s mission to bring Braille labels to grocery stores; another father who organized a group of climbers to accompany his 8 year-old young son and he for their climb up Mount Kilimanjaro to fundraise for a cure for Duchenne; parents who helped their 6 year-old son found an organization that works to make hospital experiences better for sick children by arranging visits from National Hockey League players and providing toys and games.

It appears that this combination of passion and support is a profound recipe for engagement and “civic success.”  But given this apparent nexus, we wonder how we can support youth who may be concerned about an issue but do not have similar resources? It is certainly admirable of parents to encourage social consciousness and participatory citizenship among their children, but not all youth are situated in families or communities where adults have the time and resources to help young people turn their civic tendencies into established projects. Is having supporting adults around youth to inspire them to think about causes a necessary condition for these youth to be civically engaged? If so, how can we extend key supports to help all youth to engage in and create solutions for society?  Further, many of the young activists discuss the influence of supporting adults on their interest in civic engagement in the first place. They note how a parent or another adult first discussed an issue with them, which in turn evoked a sense of compassion and a related interest in activism. As for youth whose parents may not be civically engaged themselves, how can we provide them with requisite awareness and resources to see themselves as change agents?

The vignettes reiterate the importance of ensuring that young people’s emerging passions are met with critical supports to help them translate ideas into activism. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we’re left with the conclusion that caring adults who serve as role models and mentors have a uniquely positive influence on youth’s goals and their paths to reach them. Linking more youth with caring, engaged adults or with instrumental supports to help them turn their interests into action is a worthwhile endeavor for civic engagement initiatives. Programs like Mikva Challenge are already supporting youth in these ways, and organizations like DoSomething.org are exploring the possibility of delivering supports for youth engagement through digital technologies.

In a different vein, the vignettes also raise a question for us about narratives of “civic success,” particularly related to one element that is the cornerstone to success stories in any domain: failure. Although several stories mention moments or instances that cause students to backtrack their efforts or feel temporarily discouraged (such as a middle school student, who grew up to be a special education teacher, being teased by his classmates for being labeled as ‘emotionally disturbed’), the vast majority of stories tend to focus more prominently on the interest, achievements and outcomes related to these young people’s initiatives. On one hand, the focus on positive elements of each story contributes to the message that activism is accessible to all (it’s hard to imagine feeling like ‘you can do it too’ after reading a collection of stories about people who couldn’t). But, if we “sugarcoat” stories about failure or create an impression that success, achievement and recognition are hallmarks of civic engagement, we risk providing an incomplete picture of what civic engagement entails.  Even if youth are motivated to become engaged, they may not persevere when they begin encountering challenges—and they almost certainly will, since social issues tend to exist in the first place because they are difficult to solve. If we want to prepare young people for sustained civic engagement, we need to be upfront about the rewards and the challenges they may encounter, in order to set the critical groundwork for both an orientation toward achieving “civic success” and a “civic resilience” that allows activists to see initiatives through in spite of obstacles.

Stand Up! provides an impressive array of stories that can open young people’s minds to the possibility of activism. The vignettes reinforce the message that youth can take issues that matter to them and become leaders in creating change. At the same time, the collection surfaces questions about the factors that facilitate youth “rock[ing] the world.” Schlimm is unquestionably successful in crafting a different narrative about 21st century youth than often pervades the popular press – and we’re thrilled to see stories that shift the focus from the art of the selfie to the power of selfless activism.

Some Thoughts about Good Collaboration

by Lynn Barendsen

I have recently returned from a thought-provoking meeting, and write here to share some reflections.  For almost two decades, our Good Project team has been investigating Good Work, and more recently we have expanded our research to include investigations into Good Play, Good Citizenship, and Good Life.  In particular, I have been tasked with considering the legacy of the Good Project:  our impact in and beyond the classroom and our influence within the broader conversation among educational organizations, social movements, and changemakers.

In San Francisco, I attended the quarterly meeting of Eric Liu’s Civic Collaboratory.  Our thanks to Eric Liu for inviting us to attend the Collaboratory (Howard Gardner and I have both attended, on separate occasions) – the opportunity to participate gives us the opportunity to connect (and potentially work) with many who share our interests.  Similarly we hope to contribute substantively to the work and ideas put forward by the Collaboratory group. Our involvement with this network has given me new insight into what it takes to collaborate well.

First, a bit about the Collaboratory.  Part of Citizen University (formerly known as the Guiding Lights Network), the Civic Collaboratory is the brainchild of Eric Liu, writer, “civic entrepreneur” and former speechwriter for the Clinton White House.  The collaboratories are invitation-only working meetings, gathering leaders of civic and democratic organizations, activists, writers and researchers from the worlds of education, business, law, science, art, politics and technology.  The shared goal of this non-partisan group is to invigorate citizenship and democracy in the US.

Clearly this is a “can do” group. During each meeting, a few members of the Collaboratory present a major initiative or question to the entire group.  The rest of the members are expected to provide not only feedback but also genuine, real commitments of time, energy and resources.  This format, dubbed the “Rotating Credit Club,” is taken seriously:  in addition to commitments made during the session, members of the Collaboratory are also encouraged to work together in between sessions.

An example: Jacqueline Smith, Advisor to the President for Social Embeddedness at Arizona State University, is tasked with helping to design ASU’s Public Service Academy. Jacqueline and colleagues are thinking about the kinds of leaders we might need in the future, hope to graduate “collaborative leaders of character,” and “redefine what public service is in our country.”  To accomplish these goals, the Public Service Academy is creating a Social Impact Training Corps (SITC), a civilian version of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). ASU, the largest public university in the country, has 73,000 students across four campuses in the Phoenix metropolitan area; this is a project with big potential impact.  Jacqueline asked the Collaboratory for immediate feedback (e.g. would you hire a SITC graduate) and for longer-term help (how can we spread this idea).   One participant from Change.org said he’d happily hire a graduate because they had already been vetted.  A fellow from a major foundation suggested Jacqueline consider how to pull returning veterans into the model and contact the Tillman Foundation.

I am still learning the ins and outs of this network, but there are a few critical elements that make me optimistic that the Collaboratory will be an example of “good” collaboration.  Each of these elements, present here in practice, have been identified as crucial in our research on Good Collaboration:

-The delineation of responsibilities is clear.  Interestingly, it is up to the individual who is doing the asking to follow up with all connections made.

-The collaborative process is clearly laid out and consistent from one meeting to the next.

-Goals are articulated at the outset, revisited at the end of each meeting, and explained in between quarterly gatherings.

-Attendees, or collaborators, are all present because they want to be.  Participation has not been imposed upon anyone.

Attention to these nuts-and-bolts make me hopeful that actual change may be achieved by this group, for example, opportunities for local impact (community gardens, senior centers) are increased by broadening the reach of new organizations like Citizenvestor, new technologies like google plus “hangouts” can be utilized to improve the civic and cultural dialogues that are going on around us constantly.  I have personally connected with three participants since the meeting, in each case discerning potential projects that could encourage good collaborative work in new venues.

Over the years, my colleagues and I have written quite a bit about what it takes to do Good Work, acknowledging that carrying out high quality, ethically responsible work is anything but easy.  We began to study collaboration because we were curious to determine why it is that some collaborations go well while so many fail. We believe that collaborative skills are increasingly important in an age when interconnectedness is the norm.  At the same time, one needs to be very wary of pseudo connectedness and pseudo collaboration – like, for example, the teenager with 1000 “friends” who has no one to turn to when in need.

The connection between Good Work and collaboration is more direct than I previously realized.  In Gardens of Democracy, Liu and co-author Nick Hanauer rework several common beliefs about that basic democratic notion, “self-interest.”   For example, “It’s survival of the fittest – only the strong survive” becomes “It’s survival of the smartest – only the cooperative survive” and “rugged individualism wins” becomes “teamwork wins”.  We exist in a world that is constantly connected, where workers across sectors are always “on” and are regularly asked to communicate between multiple cultural understandings.  Perhaps, Good Work in the 21st century faces too many challenges to be achieved in isolation; perhaps, Good Work in the 21st century is necessarily collaborative.