A thought.

from The Premises of our Premises

XVI. Rather than assume that individual differences (gender or race based, for example) and/or teaching biases (preferential calling on males, for example) serve as the root cause for a lack of learning opportunities and therefore create learning deficits in certain individuals, it would be more applicable and inclusive to view these groups as ones who have different learning needs which are not being met within traditional classrooms as a function of learning style, not gender, race, color, creed or even individual learning deficits. This would serve as a better, more unifying solution then promoting than segregation of students by gender and race, two approaches currently advocated to promote better learning, and perhaps even open up a dialogue to better understand how individual needs are not being met within traditional classrooms....


So guys.....

Thoughts from Harvy Melnick....

Here is the Message that I sent to Mr. Melnick:

have recently started to work on my Kauffman Entreprenurial Year project more aggressively, as we talked about before Mr. Melnick. We are hoping to gather information from local universities and community foundations to see what type of tutoring work they are doing. In some form we plan on compiling all of this information along with some information/research on tutoring theory. The group and I have been thinking of developing some type of web site which may include other multimedia sources, devoted to bringing to light some of the accomplishments of K -12 students from the Rochester area in order to counter the mass of negative attention that they more regularly receive. I was wondering if you happened to know of any recourses that would be useful for me to read in order to increase my repertoire of education/tutoring/ alternative learning works with value and substance. Since I have been to your home, I know that you have hundreds of sources- so when you have some time I would love to hear about some of your favorites.

This is his first in a series of responses:
Tutoring (for your project): Please do not confuse the need for content explanation (tutoring) with needing to be taught in a different manner/using a different process. One is "content" (the 1st), the other is "process" (i.e. how one learns vs. what one learns...). My bias is that many groups who are under served under perform due to a failed "process," often pointed to (and over-politicized), such as girls, minority groups, etc.) is NOT about the content...see what you think!
Please ask me for any clarification you might desire. And BY THE WAY, check out an article I wrote (on my website, entitled "The Politics of Ability," which can be found on: www.InYourRightMind.com

Regarding "learning styles," there are MANY, MANY ways to describe this...my article focuses on right brain/left brain -right handed/left-handed learners, but this encompasses visual vs. auditory learners, written vs. aural expression, experiential vs. passive learning...and there are more ways of describing this same phenomena, which I will try to reference for you soon.


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I have spent some time looking around on his site- and have read the posts. I have no yet read the essays but I am hoping to do so in the coming week. ...These are just some things to keep in mind as we narrow our focus. Comments encouraged.....

Resources a la Dana Lundquist

I became friends, or should I say associates, with Dana Lundquist who is an Eastman student and summer '09 Urban Fellow. She is the girl who set up the trip to the Rochester Zen Center last weekend. I got to speaking with her about my KEY project, or rather, Tamara told her a bunch about it...and here is some info that send sent me. Turns out her summer placement was with the Rochester Youth Bureau- and they have tons of resources for us. Her message to me is below

Youth Bureau Sthufff

Hey I just talked to the guy I'm working for and he'd love to meet with you to discuss what's going on here- he's really freakin cool and totally understands your concern about being pulled around by different organizations.

His name is Garth Freeman and you can give him an email at gfreeman@monroecounty.gov or call at 585-753-6456

also in terms of positive development you might want to check out this website http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.search-institute.org/content/what-kids-need ...the 40 developmental assets are used a lot here

good luck!

We need to follow up on this connections, Team!

The Present and Future of RCCL

Hey all.

Here are the meeting notes and some comments from my meeting with Glenn from Friday July 24th. After speaking with Glenn and listening to his intentions I was floored with how closely that matched my ideas for RCCL and our group's goals. FYI, this is all confidential information...so I probably shouldn't even be blogging about it....

Jumpstart was eliminated as the result of a top down decision from the corporate office. The company reformed their strategic plan and decided to focus their literacy effort only in major metropolitan areas such as DC, LA, NYC, Phili, etc. Although Rochester was on the verge of becoming a super cite for Jumpstart and the UR division has surpassed most other schools with documented positive impact in the city, the decision was unarguable. This left two full time staff members of out of a job, not to mention about 65 undergraduate volunteers without a placement or promise of work study stipend.

The good news is UR and RCCL don't want to see it all end.....They see this as an opportunity to strengthen and restructure RCCL- OHH Thank goodness!

Glenn and the Dean's office has put together some funds to hire one full time and one half time employee for the upcoming year. The Full-time position would coordinate the new RCCL initiative mimicking Jumpstart- logically dubbed UR Reading. The group will function based on a coaching model including tutoring and mentoring, utilizing the connections we have built with School 19, etc. The potential full-time staff person would coordinate UR Reading as well as Project Care.

The half-time position will cover many areas of RCCL left fairly unsupported at this time. UR Potential/Hillside Children's Center, Community Service Network (Partners in Reading also falls under CSN), and Alternative Spring Break will be overseen by this newbie.

Finally, the RCCL applied for a Learn and Serve America Grant. The purpose of this proposal was to obtain funding to coordinate the revival and expansion of the UR Education Alliance :) The grant required the coordination of educational outreach opportunities, as well as leadership and developmental training for students. The UR Ed alliance would be directed by the new fulltime employee in RCCL and would provide structure and unification to the UR tutoring and volunteering initiatives. At this point Glenn illuded to having a class for volunteerism and holding about two workshops per semester dealing with tutoring and education issues. THEN I chimed in and told him about Mollie's idea for a class AND our potential idea for Local Edcuation social networking. OMG he loved it. .... Lets hope that they get the grant. (There is another grant available surrounding education and regional social networking....sooo...)

Tamara and I also planted the seed for Glenn to hire some part time undergraduates to help put from ummmpf behind the programs coming out of RCCL. I think he liked that idea too. :)

In the end Glenn had to run to another engagement and he didnt have too much time to tie up the loose ends of the conversation. IN short, I am going to go my independent study/internship with him in the fall to help organize the effort in RCCL in a more direct way. Glenn would like to meet with all of us in late August. If we decide to go through with things about this web site....I could be preliminarily in charge of getting all of the info UR tutoring invitiatives up on the web site with info for each...if this doesnt fit with our mission..i will find another plan.

I am going to post again soon about info from Mr. Melnick. We really really REALLY need to get serious about this now. Are you with me? Please post a new blog post and lay out your ideas. Also, looks like we have a meeting to schedule. I can plan around the RA training schedule for Alicia and I ...but i need to know the UR foot schedule..email that to me when you can. Love you all.

Next up...an actual plan!

I was initially tempted to just write back to Amanda's post in the comment box, but there is waaaayyyy too much to say!

First off, I think you've done a great job of consulting reality and our goals/interests into something solid. I had been playing with the idea of our group being/forming a "hub" but I didn't know in what way that could materialize.

I was very sad and shocked to hear that Jumpstart was being canceled. One could argue that of all programs UR students participated in, it made the most solid impact on the actual lives of children due to the fact that it was a huge commitment on the part of students (more so that many of the disjointed efforts out there). What the hell are people in our world thinking? I'm about to get political here, so I will stop.

Unfortunate as that may be, I completely see the opportunity here that you see, Amanda. There WILL be tons of people looking for other efforts to be a part of. And there needs to be some coordination to make that happen.

About Tara's position: if we re-created the Ed. Alliance, could we also create a student position that would be for credit or paid? Or it could be co-run....whatever allows students to feel it worthy and necessary to dedicate more time to it. It could be useful to incoroporate into any major as a for credit internship...just a thought.

I LOVE the idea about the course. There was a course with former Dean Asbury that emphasized civic engagement--it was 2 credits. I don't know if that exists, but Mollie's idea sounds similar.

The Main Idea
I love it. It is concrete, with a tangible goal. It allows for collaboration. We could get the website going, but it eventually could become a place for all things tutoring/ed related. It could be a meeting place (social networking of sorts) for these groups. Rather than a attempting to create a physical space (I know we sort of gave that up a while ago anyway) we are creating a space for ideas and collaboration. That is the capacity we have as students who know how to plan, organize, and research. If planning events or meetings is a bi-product of that effort to unify, so be it.

I am aware of some efforts right now to link up local colleges, partially on behalf of a friend of mine. I will look into what's going on with that.

I like that there is an opportunity in this slightly augmented form of our orginal idea for us all to carve out new roles. There is the website aspect, networking, etc.

I will also start a little research regarding what types of resources are available for volunteers in the City Schools. Are there ANY websites? Is there any info online?

Back to the spelling bee idea...I think the reason it stood out in my mind so much was that it seemed like a good EFFECT of collaboration. For example, once groups are already unified, they need things to do together that reinforce their "group-ness." If people get in their head that each year all the the Ed. groups plan a fundraiser, that will reinforce the fact that they are part of something--like a rallying point...But I think what I realize now is that no large fundraising event can happen UNTIL these groups unite in the first place. Then we could work with them to determine appropriate fundraising events that unite university and community. But it wouldn't be Step 1--it would be closer to a final step. Did that make sense?

A collaborative idea with potential

OHhh how I love Blogging. ....

I appreciate everyone's feedback about the Spelling Bee. Something about it still just doesn't feel right to me. I don't think it will accomplish much other than bringing people together--unless we devote ourselves to literacy and spelling tutoring throughout the year. How does this bring people together? How does it connect schools or the UR with tutoring efforts? I like the idea (or a similar event in the same vein) as a fundraiser...but what is our mission? Maybe it would be better if we defined out goals! And by maybe...I mean absolutley. I do love the idea of an event or benefit that brings students together and highlights their positive abilities though.

1. I am meeting with Glenn this Friday. I plan on speaking with him about all of the tutoring efforts that RCCL manages / used to manage. I'd also like to learn more about the former Education Alliance as well. As some of you know, Jumpstart was canceled for the upcoming yeat at UR. I am eager to find out more from Glenn. That means about 65 students from UR that were planning to tutor in the city will not be able to, not to mention hundeds of rochester preschoolers that will be without additional on-on-one time with college students.

To me, this means more UR students that will be looking to join one of the smaller, disjointed tutoring efforts at UR. It drives me crazy that we let a good program go. Also, Tara's postion as Vista Scholar in the RCCL has ended and she is now gone...leaving NO ONE inthe RCCL to manage UR Tours, UR potential, Partners in Reading etc etc. Seems it is time to reform the education alliance? Or not....?!

Mollie Foust was one of the handfull of UR undregraduates who started the Ed Alliance a few years back. There was a grassroots movment to unify and support each other in their independent efforts. There is NO Doubt that UR needs unificatioin behind their EDU outreach and community service. I spoke with Mollie about why the group failed. She thinks that it was in large part because the position requires more time than a student can dedicate. Additionally, the leaders of each tutoring group had a hard time staying motivated under the umbrella of the ed alliance...since it did not have an administartive/offical overtone, as it would if RCCL had a staff position to oversee all EDU related communicty serive. This is something that I would like to see happen-- because until this is made possible each tutoring effort will remain small and disjointed and fail to gather ample support from the Univeristy as it scrambles to keep itself organized!

As you can probably tell, I would really like to find a way to optimize RCCL. I have numerous other reasons which I can go into at another time. (right now I am trying to use true typing technique....and it is awful. Takes at least ten times longer than my adapted method) aside over!

I am not sure if I ever told you guys this but I just found out more details. Mollie, John Oakford, Erin Fry, Erin something...and a couple of others have been developing a UR interdepartmental course on tutoring and urban issues. Originally designed to be a 2 credit CAS class, they have been meeting, developing, thinking and re thinking and as the plan stands now the course would be 6 credits and be run in the style of Theories of Religion. Ideally, all UR students that tutor or volunteer (or anyone really) could take the course and then the class would break into smaller groups ie. Partners in reading, Jumpstart, etc. There, each group could talk about their specific issues. Mollie and friends are still in the development stages now - and we can def join in the fun as part of our KEY project!

Additionally, Mollie and I did some brinstorming about specific project ideas for our group based on our individial interests and postings that Derek and Alicia have made to the blog thus far. Sooooo ...drum roll please...

We came up with the idea of having a web site :) which features all of the univeristies and community centers in rochester that are tutorinG! This can start very small and we can add info gradually. The idea would be to serve as a hub of Tutoring/ edu info....so kind of establishing a Tutoring and Education Social networking site. We could go out into the community/look on other schools web sites...have the write to us... whatever. The web site can also contain research, suggestions for tutors, etc etc. We can change the postings frequently. Add research papers have community memebers write articles... THEN....

Each week we can have a different school/tutoring program be in charge of writing in a positive story about the students that they work with. Think about it, their parents would look at the site, their teachers and administrators from their respective Rochester school would go to the site, the volunteers from the local college would go to the site. This is partially inspired by the web site that Alicia loves so much higlighting the accomplishments of city school students.

From here we can plan events and post a community calendar. I might be crazy but i really like this idea. We can start small and keep growing as our ideas develop. I have emailed Mr. Melnick to get some good sources on alternative learning and tutoriung theory. Fyi..I will let you know what his suggested reading entails.

I have totally forgotten everything else that I wanted to say, but since this post is so long I would like to stop now anyway!! Leave your thoughts ASAP. We need to start developing our project and indi studies ASAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spelling Bee Part II: Response to Derek

The idea stemmed from a meeting I had with Juliet, as you may remember me telling you. We talked a lot about how sports were considered valid as a competitive extra-curricular activity, but arts/literature/reading were not. There are issues in the city with kids not encouraging each other to be academic (outside of the rigorous programs like honors, AP, IB etc). There are some really great clubs and programs out there, like First Robotics for example, in which kids work with Xerox engineers building a robot and competing nationwide. There are math teams as well.

So, from there we had discussed some time of enrichment activity that would promote a sense of pride around learning. I discussed my love for all things literature, and in particular poetry. She suggested that we contact the 19th Ward Community Assoc. because its leader had the idea of a Spelling Bee in mind. That got the wheels turning in my mind about what kind of value this event could provide to students who are interested in reading/spelling/grammar but currently feel out of place because these are not always valued.

I'm not attached to the idea of a spelling bee in particular, but I do really like the idea of starting some kind of annual event geared toward learning that focuses on kids, brings out community members and provides the opportunity for collaboration among educationally oriented groups at UR.

To address some of Derek's points/Amanda's concern:
-I agree that a spelling bee inherently is about rote learning rather than critical thinking skills. It has the potential to reward those who are the best at memorizing. Given also that I'm pretty much against telling kids that Standard written English is the only form of English, a spelling bee could be problematic. Although spelling bees are sort of antiquated, they are seeing a revival.

-There will be a winner, but perhaps we could do something for all participants? A UR tour, and lunch on campus? Maybe we could have each participant matched up with a volunteer "mentor" who would quiz them all year on their spelling. The possibilities are endless.

-Despite its emphasis on traditional knowledge and learning...there are definitely benefits for the students participating, because spelling does have an effect on reading comp. Spelling isn't necessarily just about spelling as the research I've linked to here shows. Even in a situation where everyone isn't speaking (or listening to) Standard English at home, learning to spell is the starting point for good reading skills. Reading=power (unless you are reading government sponsored propaganda, which is sort of the case for all students going through state-run education systems...but that, my friends is for another day). lol.

-If all or some of us like the idea of doing a spelling bee...we can use this as a basis for something innovative and non-traditional. It could be a geography bee instead. It could be a poetry celebration (I like that one, hehe) And it has the potential to grow each year under different leadership.

Whatever we decide, we should get going soon. If any of you like this idea, we have to research funding opportunities, which may mean linking up with other UR sponsored groups (kind of like how ArtAwake operates under the Urban Exploring Club) Thoughts? I am in no way attached to any idea I bring up, but at this point, I like the idea of creating an annual event and I think it's time to find ideas to stick to and implement.