If Not Us, Then Who? Reasons for a Sense of Urgency from Dr. Stephen G. Peters

Recently, I was fortunate to attend the No Child Left out Conference led by Dr. Stephen G. Peters. It was at this conference where I got to hear Dick Allington's presentation on teaching kids to read. It was also this conference that inspired me to write To a New Administrator: An Open Letter about Courage.

I was touched by Dr. Peters' statement as he started the opening keynote:

"Put your titles away today.  Think about who we are from the heart and what we can do for kids."

Dr. Peters shared many reasons that contributed to a sense of urgency to help kids be successful in school. Here are some of the things he shared:

• Two out of three 8th graders can't read proficiently.
• Two out of three 8th graders scored below proficient in math.
• Seventy-five percent of students are not proficient in civics.
• Less than half of the American students finish college (46%). Where are they going to work? and what are they going to earn for their efforts?
• One out of four HS graduates are college ready in four core subjects.
• 1.1 million American students drop out of school every year.
• For African-american and Hispanic students across the country, dropout rates are close to 50% compared to the national average of 27%.
• Nearly half of those who employ recent HS graduates said overall preparation was "deficient."
• Sixty-two percent of HS dropouts are unmotivated to graduate. The other 38% are exactly the opposite.
• For the first time, most Americans think it is unlikely that today's youth will have a better life than their parents (Gallup, 2011).
• The health of a typical HS dropout by age 18 is comparable to the health of an educated person in their 40's.

Dr. Peters first told us to Do Something in his book, Do You Know Enough About Me to Teach Me? Recently, I heard the song called Do Something by Matthew West and I immediately thought of Dr. Peters and the students and teachers that I work with each day. 

 

If not us, then who

If not me and you

Right now, it’s time for us to do something

If not now, then when

Will we see an end

To all this pain

It’s not enough to do nothing

It’s time for us to do something

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"No one rises to low expectations."

- Stephen G. Peters

What will you do today?

Increasing Background Knowledge: An Example based on NIGHT by Elie Wiesel

The following is a guest Post from Jill Thomas, 

Hoover High School teacher of Freshman English

The following activity was one that Kristen Westwood and I put together.  After intense reading and studying of the Odyssey over the past month, we wanted the students to have some time in the non-fiction realm, so they were to research background information on a very difficult topic – the holocaust.  

The students spent one full day independently researching an assigned topic on which they would become “the expert.”  

After one class period of research, the second class period was spent presenting their newly found information to a group in a jigsaw activity, so that at the end of the day, they would have complete and detailed information on a total of five different topics.  The topics they researched were: Kristallnacht, Hitler and Nazi rule, concentration camps, ghettos, and the “final solution.”  

     

After spending approximately 20-25 minutes presenting to one another, we then reflected upon what was learned over the past two days.  To do that, we watched a short 9-minute video trailer of Night that included some very graphic, difficult-to-see images of concentration camps and ghettos.  

(The video link can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15sM_av9i3Q).

  

I warned the students that the content would be tough to swallow, but that I wanted them to feel the weight and gravity of the situation that occurred not all that long ago so that they would be fully prepared, both mentally and emotionally, for reading the memoir of firsthand accounts of living through the holocaust.  

After watching the video, each student completed a one paragraph reflection accounting for at least five new things they learned.  I have loved reading through the reflections because so many students were touched and horrified (justifiably) by the actions of the Nazi regime.

This was a fantastic lesson to get us propelled into reading Night, and my students are equally as excited about reading this novel together as I am.  We will be studying the novel through a process called Literature Circles where the students will meet in groups three times over the next three weeks to discuss and present specific information according to their “role” in their Literature Circle groups.  

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Motivation Monday #8 - Michael Jordan on Failure {February 24, 2014}

Today's post was inspired by my friend, Coach Bob Starkey. He's been a long-time twitter friend, but I hope to meet him in real life some day! His writes a great blog called Hoop Thoughts. It's geared towards leadership, basketball, and coaching. I discovered another blog he writes called Hoop Boost: A Blog for Serious Athletes. Recently, Coach Starkey posted a story about Michael Jordan as told Tim Grover in his book Relentless.  The story goes like this:

"After every game, I used to ask Michael (Jordan) one question: Five, six, or seven? As in what time are we hitting the gym tomorrow morning. And he’d snap back a time and that was it. Especially after a loss, when there wasn’t a whole lot to say. No discussion, no debate, no lame attempt to convince me he needed the morning off. You good? I’m good. See you in the morning. And the next morning at whatever time he’d decided, he’d awaken to find me standing outside his door. No matter what happened the night before-good game, bad game, soreness, fatigue- he was up working out every morning while most of the other guys slept."

This story reminded me of the Michael Jordan video below. I hope you enjoy!

This week, I'll be asking myself... Five, six, or seven? How will you challenge yourself?

Motivation Monday #7 - Be Empowered {February 17, 2014}

Have a terrific week!