A boost for the middle of the learning curve
By Stacy A. Teicher, Christian Science Monitor
PARKVILLE, MD. – Earning good grades in middle school didn't take much work for Kason Washington. He assumed high school would be "a joke," too. "I thought I'd get straight As, but then I realized it was difficult," he says.
Now a senior at Parkville High School in Baltimore County, Md., he's been pushed to work harder than he ever would have imagined. That's because in his freshman year, a teacher invited him into a program called AVID - Advancement Via Individual Determination. In place at more than 2,000 middle schools and high schools nationwide, it puts students with average to low grades on a path toward college. AVID challenges them with harder courses while providing the support of a familylike atmosphere and a range of study skills.
This spring, the first set of AVID seniors will be graduating in Baltimore County. Out of 115 seniors, 98 percent have applied to college, and many have already received acceptances and scholarships, says Jesse Douglass, the county's AVID coordinator.
The program is an expanding component of the district's efforts to close achievement gaps. Currently in place at 15 high schools, it will be added to five more next year. Although many AVID students are from minority or low-income families, the program isn't targeted specifically at them. It's designed for students in the middle, those who are often invisible because they're not at the top but they're also not failing or causing trouble. It's primarily about closing the gap between students' potential and their performance.
During a national AVID conference at its headquarters in San Diego this March, Baltimore County Superintendent Joe Hairston gave one of the keynote speeches. His presentation showed that the nearly 800 AVID students in his district have higher attendance than the student body overall, higher pass rates on state tests, and higher participation rates in advanced courses and SATs. Nationally, 95 percent of AVID students go directly to college, most to four-year schools.
Here at Parkville, students use phrases like "tough love" and "boot camp" when recalling their initial experiences with AVID teachers. This year, Kason says, he tried to back out of his teacher's requirement that he take at least one Advanced Placement course, but she would have none of that, so he's muscling his way through AP Psychology.
"I wanted to go to college, but I thought I wouldn't be able to get out of high school," says Ezinne Chinemere, one of many AVID seniors who will soon be first-generation college students. "It's a lot of pressure... [because my family] didn't have that opportunity.... It's either go to college," she pauses dramatically, "or leave the house."
What prepares them to handle that pressure with grace is the AVID methodology, which spreads through the school after initial training for a team of AVID teachers. Students learn to take notes in all their classes and formulate questions on points that aren't clear. Teachers address the questions or have peer groups help one another. Finally, the students write in their own words what they've learned.
"When every teacher requires note-taking ... achievement goes up tremendously," says Mary Catherine Swanson, AVID's founder and executive director, in a phone interview. "It sounds so simple, and in many ways it is, but it's not a way most people teach."
Because AVID students in each grade also meet in a group every day, they form a family bond. "A teacher follows them all the way through ... and [the students] know they can talk not just about academia, but how they are doing in terms of achieving their goals," Dr. Douglass says.
AVID students also learn to lead peer tutorials, hold Socratic dialogues, and take field trips together to college campuses.
Katie Schmidt joined AVID as a 10th-grader after barely getting by the year before. "I would have said I wasn't smart, but that's not it," she says. She recalls exercises that developed her personal skills, like the "paper bag speech," where she had to bring in three objects and talk about why they were important to her. Now a senior, she's the opposite of the shy person she used to be. And as one of the white students in an AVID class that is largely African-American, she says it "breaks down barriers" and has given her a more diverse set of friends.
Michael Moore, a tall young man with dreadlocks and a charismatic smile, is Parkville's senior class president. He credits AVID with boosting his oratory and leadership skills. The program also does outreach to parents. But because Michael's mother has to work at night, he says, she's relieved that he's getting help with homework and applying for college. In the fall, he plans to start studying engineering at Florida A&M.
Ms. Swanson launched AVID in a school in San Diego 25 years ago and has watched it grow largely by word of mouth ever since. It's proof that students whom society sometimes writes off "can and will succeed when they are given academic rigor and a support structure," she says. But as she prepares to retire, she's frustrated that more students don't have such opportunities. "It should be the public school birthright for all kids. We have to do this very deeply and very systemically."
In the first challenge this round, we looked at the level of social support the contestants could get. Social support is one of the major components of good health and is said to be the key factor in the longevity of women over men. Hundreds of people came into the Wellness Center over a two day period to share their support for the remaining contestants. Overall, the women received more support than the men. Phoebe Leong won the challenge for the second year in a row with Loni Nguyen closing in on the second day.
In the next challenge, the contestants ran a mile. Standards for age and gender were set to be applied, however the victory went to cross country star Loni Nguyen without the need for the standards! The three men all trailed within 20 seconds after her, starting with freshman track runner Matt Indelicato.
For the final Emergency Room, we met with all five of the remaining students. Only the teacher, Sara Falls, was guaranteed a spot in the final four. The five students faced their final judgment. The first to go was Daniel Jahangard. He had the most to make up for from the last round and his performance in this round was not strong enough to stay in the game. As for the final member of the jury, it turned out to be junior Greg Jew. Loni Nguyen's high performance in the two challenges managed to pull her in the final four. Matt Indelicato's overall scores were also just high enough to keep him in the final four. And once again, last year's Health Idol Phoebe Leong has made the final four- thanks to the overwhelming social support of her friends!
Gen Y's opt-out vision
By Courtney E. Martin, Christian Science Monitor
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day (April 27) would be a great idea if the contemporary workplace was actually a place where we wanted our daughters and sons to end up. Unfortunately, for the second-wave feminists who created it, and fortunately, for the third-wave feminists who aren't having it, this "special day" is about as relevant as a traditional Southern coming out party.
The "opt-out revolution," first coined by Lisa Belkin in her New York Times Magazine story in October 2003, has since been discussed by feminists and antifeminists alike in countless news features and opinion pieces. The trend of young women rejecting the traditional workforce is, indeed, real. But this trend isn't limited to young women. What social commentators are failing to point out is that both young men and women are not just opting out, we're not even buying in.
Five years after collecting an Ivy League undergraduate degree, I look around at my crew of brilliant and promising young friends and see only a few of us who are willing to slave away 12 hours a day for the security of a 401(k). It isn't that we're impractical - I'd give my pinkie finger for the comfort of health insurance - or adverse to hard work. It comes down to this: We have watched our parents waste away in drab cubicles and count the days to retirement. We have heard them whine about the work/life balance. And we're not having it.
Call me idealistic, but isn't work supposed to be part of life? In other words, a vital, joyful activity? Do I have to accept the idea that "real life" begins when I punch out at 8 p.m. each day? Am I supposed to settle for being alive only on the weekends?
I don't mean to say that my peers and I are spoiled brats who don't want to pay their dues. We do want to contribute to society, but we want to do it in a way that doesn't drain the life out of us. That is why the majority of my friends have gravitated toward self-employment, freelancing, consulting, and part-time work. According to Working Today, a national nonprofit that advocates for these outside-the-box thinkers, 30 percent of the current workforce is independently employed. I predict that this number is heading nowhere but up.
While corporate CEOs and nonprofit executive directors rub their hands together with the anticipation of fresh copying/collating young blood, we are running the other way. A childhood friend in Denver started his own medical supply business right out of college. My writing partner from Houston does freelance music promotion and writes screenplays. My housemate spends his Brooklyn days packaging books and teaching kids to play the guitar. We are digital video artists, web designers, bloggers, stock market players, personal assistants, and bartenders. And we are all in our mid 20s.
Unlike our parents, Generation Y is rejecting the workaholic ethos before we even have kids. We watched them, our beloved babysitters and cool young uncles, enjoy the flexibility and ingenuity of the dotcom work culture before it crashed. We watched our frenetic mothers juggle to-do lists only Vishnu could accomplish and our exhausted fathers stumble home from work in crumpled suits. We want something different.
The "opt-out revolution" is not about young women prioritizing their families over their careers, despite the media hype and doomsday predictions. In fact, recent research by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children," reveals that the majority of women who leave the workforce do so because they are uninspired at work.
The young women I know are powerhouses of ambition, confidence, and innovation. We aren't shrinking from our potential in the big, bad world in favor of safe stay-at-home options. We are defiantly rejecting a culture that doesn't recognize the value of family, flexibility, and fun. We don't even want it all if that "all" includes sleep deprivation, regrets, and illness. We'd rather be excellent at less than mediocre at more, selfish and happy than sacrificing and bitter. We'd rather have a little bit of financial strain and insecurity and a lot of fulfillment, than a whole lifetime of biding our time for some mirage of retirement nirvana.
This is a crisis of culture, not a crisis of commitment. We are composing lives of free agency and ingenuity, making second-wave feminist rhetoric about "choice" real. It is not a failure of feminism that we are opting out. It is, in fact, a tribute to it.
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Jennifer Kenny-Baum (Wellness Coordinator) is available daily.
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Wayne Hayes (Counselor) is available on Wednesdays.
James Guay (Therapist) is available on Wednesdays.
Melissa Ramirez and Debby Machold (Counselors) are available on Wednesdays.
Ali Abolfazli (Counselor) is available Thursdays.
Megan Agee (Community Safety Organizer) is available on Thursdays.
Delvin Mack (Tagalog Speaking Counselor) is available on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Bullying Sidelines Overweight Kids
Overweight children who are victims of bullying are less likely to engage in physical activity, new research suggests. Dr. Eric A. Storch, who led the study said: "The health implications of this are clear in that these youth will receive less activity," making it more difficult for them to shed pounds.
Most children are bullied at some time in their childhood, but overweight children are particularly vulnerable to playground taunts.
Storch, an assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Florida's College of Medicine in Gainesville and colleagues studied 92 overweight and at-risk for being overweight children between the ages of 8 and 18 to find out how bullying affected their exercise.
They report, in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology, that 25 percent of children reported that bullying was a significant problem for them and that it often led them to avoid situations where they are likely to be picked on, namely gym class and sports.
"We found that as rates of peer victimization among overweight kids went up, rates of physical activity went down," Storch said in a university statement.
The researchers also found ties between bullying and depression, loneliness and anxiety. "Peer victimization," Storch explained, "is related to depression -- this is nothing surprising; however, what is unique is that these depressive symptoms help tell us why victimized overweight kids are less active."
Storch added that parents and schools need to be active in combating peer victimization through teacher training and school-wide prevention programs.
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