Promising Practices

       
                                                            

        I attended Promising Practices on November 3 along with most of my FNED class. I was not looking forward to waking up early to go to this 8am conference. With a large Dunkin' coffee in hand, I easily found where the class was; sitting squished together at the two front tables, erupting with laughter.
               The main guest speaker was Dr. Dana Fusco, who focused her speech on Youth Development-Promoting equity through child and youth agency. It captured my interest because since my major is early childhood education, I want the best for my future students and will do anything to help them. Dr. Fusco focused on youth programs that help children thrive, programs that help provide a healthy ecology for thriving. Sadly, not all of these opportunities are available to all youth.

Ecology for Thriving

- Physical/mental safety
-Appropriate structure
-Support for efficiancy
-Oppurtunities for skill building
-Supportive relationships
-Opportunities to belong
-Positive social norms
-Integration of family/school/community efforts
All of these are necessary components of youth programs to help children thrive.

Why are afterschool programs effective?

Creates trusting relationships, hands on activities, builds confidence, events that celebrate accomplishments.

                                                         

      For my first workshop, I attended Anti-Bullying: Create Positive School Culture through Effective Communication,by presenters Rebecca Ferry and Joe Pirraglia. This workshop was about creating a sense of community and equality between students. My presenters worked in a middle school so even though I want to teach the younger students, I can easily use the techniques I learned in daily lesson plans. A quote that struck a chord with my was " If kids don't feel safe, they're not going to learn." It makes me realize how important it is for every student to feel respected and cared for, no matter their age.  To help their middle school kids respect and get along, each team of students has a weekly meeting. They can talk about issues with friends, family and school. Games like the human knot and "If You Really Knew Me" are played, as well as weekly challenges, like Buddy Day, Lunch Buddies and Unity Week.

                                                        
         This workshop reminded me of the blog post we did about the GLSEN website, that had different tool kits and activites for different age groups that help prevent bullying. It would be great for every school to have a mandated Anti-Bullying campaign. The GLSEN website has a tool kit called "Ready, Set, Respect!" which I think would be great to incorporate in daily classroom activities. In middle school, kids just start figuring out who they are, their sexuality, friends, hobbies, as well as trying to accept their appearances. Bullying at this age is such an important and ongoing issue and it is so important for teachers to be aware of their students and report anything wrong with the students. You never know, you could be saving a life.

                                                      Middle School Anti-Bullying Video


             My second workshop was Having a Valuable Place in the World:Young Children Telling Stories, Writing and Drawing, presented by Martha Horn, Natasha White and Julie Slater. This workshop emphasized the importance of children expressing their thoughts and feelings by placing them on paper. Writing is favorited by children because of the freedom they have to express themselves, instead of trying to find the one right answer to a math problem.Meaningful work is really motivating. We watched a video including a little boy in a first grade class who was just clearly so excited about the story he made. The presenters told us that the little boy is usually withdrawn and barely participates in classwork. It was awesome seeing this boy smiling and showing his work to every child and teacher around him. The story was meaningful to him and wanted to show it off.

MEANINGFUL WORK children are proud of

LANGUAGE that honors and respects learners

ENVIORNMENT where children can engage in meaningful work

     In class, we talked about how easy it is for kids to just close their book, sit back, fold their arms and say "I'm done." If they are not surrounded by a caring enviornment,  they will be quickly be disinterested in the work. It is important for kids to be excited to learn. If they don't feel like they matter or not important, they won't show it.

 "Education must provide the opportunities for self fulfillment; it can, at best, provide a rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore in his/her own way." Noam Chomsky


         After the workshops, we met back in "the Don" for lunch and the unconference. Dr. Bogad and the ALLIED group gave a presentation. ALLIED is made of students of different races, cultural backgrounds and sexual orientations. They each introduced themselves and talked a little about themselves. I learned a lot from them. You have to accept everyone for who they are, never assume anything about a person, acknowledge that not everyone is straight or identifies with the gender they were born with. ALLIED talked about how code switching should be accepted. Code switching is when a person switches between languages in a conversation. We talked about code switching in class, and it was also in the article "Teaching Multilingual Children" by Virginia Collier.At the end of the unconference, there was a chance for people from the audience to talk and give their input about the conference or their own experiences. It was great to see that a couple kids from my FNED class volunteered to talk.
        In the end, I was happy I went to the conference. I learned so much about promoting equality through youth and I plan on using the strategies I learned when I become a teacher. It was a great experience and I plan on going to another conference in the future.