Ask An Expert

Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Policy & Reform

When do children show evidence of self-esteem? Earlier than you might think

Dario Cvencek, University of Washington; Andrew N. Meltzoff, University of Washington, and Anthony G. Greenwald, University of Washington

A YouTube clip called “Jessica’s Daily Affirmation” recently went viral. The clip shows a four-year-old Jessica standing in front of the bathroom mirror saying what makes her happy about herself.

Jessica’s Daily Affirmation.

Many youngsters, like Jessica, seem to exude positive feelings about their abilities – they happily report that they are good at running, jumping, drawing, math or music.

However, the belief in being good at certain concrete skills could be different from a more general sense of self-worth or what scientists call “positive self-esteem.” For example, at early ages, children can report “I’m good at running” or “I’m good with letters.” But preschoolers might not be able to answer questions about their overall sense of self-worth.

So, when do kids develop a sense of self-esteem and how can we measure it?

Our research has developed new ways to study what kids think about themselves. Parents, make a note: our results show that most kids develop a sense of self-esteem – feeling good or bad about oneself – as early as age five, before they even enter kindergarten.

Measuring self-esteem in young children

Measuring children’s self-esteem can be challenging because it seems to require a certain level of introspection and verbal abilities. We found a way of getting around this by measuring children’s deeper and more implicit sense of self-esteem, something that did not require answering verbal questions.

For example, in adults, self-esteem is often measured by asking people to rate their agreement with statements such as, “I feel that I am a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others,” or “I take a positive attitude toward myself.”

But preschoolers have difficulty answering such verbal questions. Cognitive and verbal skills required for such answers do not develop before age eight.

So, rather than relying on asking children verbal questions, we developed a new tool called the “Preschool Implicit Association Test” (the PSIAT) to measure children’s implicit self-esteem. The value of this measure was that it did not require children to verbally describe how they felt about themselves.

Here’s how we did it.

We gave two sets of small colored flags (see below), each set symbolizing “me” and “not me” to 234 children.

Child’s view of the apparatus used in the test.
Reprinted from Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 62, Cvencek, D., Greenwald, A. G., & Meltzoff, A. N., Implicit measures for preschool children confirm self-esteem’s role in maintaining a balanced identity, 50–57, Copyright (2016), with permission from Elsevier.

These children then were asked to respond to a series of “good” (fun, happy and nice) and “bad” (mad, mean and yucky) words from a loudspeaker by pressing buttons. This procedure measured how closely the children associated the “good” words with the “me” flags.

A five-year-old tested at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences.
Copyright (2011) University of Washington.

This procedure is a variation of the adult Implicit Association Test, a social psychology measure widely used to reveal hidden biases in adults about race, religion, self and other topics by asking participants to quickly categorize words from different categories.

We found that more than 90 percent of five-year-old preschoolers linked themselves with the “good” words, which indicated positive self-esteem. It also showed us that most kids develop a measurable sense of self-esteem by age five.

Our test provides researchers a reliable way of examining the earliest glimpses of how preschoolers develop a sense of their self-worth.

People with high self-esteem more resilient

So, why is self-esteem important for children?

A healthy self-esteem can provide an emotional buffer to setbacks and enable children to develop resilience toward failures. In adults, self-esteem has been shown to predict an individual’s reactions to success and failure. People who have high self-esteem persist more after experiencing a setback than do people who have low self-esteem.

In young children, such a relationship between resilience and self-esteem may be especially important to early learning and education.

For example, few first graders consistently score 100 percent on all tests, and few preschoolers are as skilled as their older siblings. We believe that such micro-setbacks can be buffered by positive self-esteem.

Because self-esteem tends to remain relatively stable across one’s lifespan, its early establishment could potentially provide a lifelong emotional buffer in the face of everyday failures and challenges.

The importance of self-esteem

How do children develop their sense of self-esteem?

Young kids care a lot about others “like me,” and this may even start in infancy. We also know from other research that infants and toddlers can judge the extent to which others are like them along several dimensions.

This lays the foundation for developing social relationships and a sense of belonging. These feelings, combined with warm and consistent care, help children develop feelings of attachment to their parents, which may further pave the way for the development of positive self-esteem. We found the first five years to be critical in laying the foundation for this social-emotional development.

Positive self-esteem can help in other ways as well.

For preschoolers, it is important to feel that they are part of a group. In this way they can navigate the social world more easily. Children, just like adults, tend to prefer those groups to which they belong.

Scientists call this an in-group preference. In-groups in adults can be based on race, nationality, religion, etc. In children, we found a strong in-group preference based on gender, and it was linked to self-esteem.

This shows that self-esteem is systematically related to other fundamental aspects of one’s personality very early in development. We believe that self-esteem is one of the mental tools children use to create a sense of identity and belonging with social groups. In other words, at an early age, children mirror adult patterns of psychological organization. This is something they bring to kindergarten with them and don’t learn in school.

Giving kids a good start in life may be one of the most important gifts that parents can provide to their child: children who feel loved by others will likely internalize this love to love themselves.

Jessica from the YouTube video is but one compelling reminder of just how inspiring a young child’s positive self-view can be. And it is the foundation for so much more.

The Conversation

Dario Cvencek, Research Scientist, University of Washington; Andrew N. Meltzoff, Professor and Co-Director, Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, University of Washington, and Anthony G. Greenwald, Professor of Psychology, University of Washington

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Bullying

The Link between Bullying Prevention and Healthy Body Image in Children

A guest post by Keir McDonald MBE

The U.K. Government recently released the results of a nationwide survey to better understand public perceptions of body image. It found that 87% of girls aged 11- 21 think that women are judged more on their appearance than on their ability.

This statistic is worrying because research has shown that in addition to affecting how people feel about their looks, poor body confidence can have a devastating effect on many aspects of their lives. According to the research, this is especially pronounced in adolescent children.
From achieving at school to effectively dealing with bullying, healthy body image is important for children to develop. As educators, we all have a responsibility to do everything we can to share positive messages about our bodies and help children develop healthy ideas around body image to further the fight against bullying.

Here are 3 ways educators and parents can encourage healthy body image in children.

#1. Engage in a healthy conversation with students and children.

First and foremost, it is important for parents and teachers to talk to kids about body image. Asking kids for their opinions about how bodies are depicted in the media is one good way to start the conversation.

Consider asking questions like “Does that look real?” “Do a lot of people really look like that?” and “What do you think might have been done to that picture to make it look that way?”

Teaching children to view media images with a critical eye is an important first step in encouraging healthy body image in children.

At a time when they should feel secure with their body, too many children learn to feel anxious about weight and begin to make choices that contribute to the very problems they hope to avoid. Weight stigma and body dissatisfaction in fact lead to poorer eating and fitness choices, less physical activity, weight gain and diminished health.

As a result, researchers at the Yale Rudd Center for Obesity and Health and elsewhere have issued a call for weight stigma reduction programs to promote positive eating and fitness habits without regard to size. Most important to this is developing an identity based on who they are rather than how they look, choosing positive role models that support their deeper values, and actively embracing health and vitality through positive eating and physical activity. This is all part of the important conversation educators and parents must be having with children.

#2. Take a hard line on bullying.

Being bullied is a major contributing factor for depression and low self-esteem in children. Bullying behavior focuses on ‘difference’ and the difference can be real or perceived. In fact, recent research from a U.S-based anti-bullying organization revealed that special needs students, LGBT students, students who are overweight, and students who are perceived as “weak” are the most likely targets of bullying by others.
Weight is often one of the “differences” referenced in bullying.

The classroom, cafeteria, library, restrooms, on the bus, and on the playground are all areas where teachers and parents can strive to create safe and bully-free environments. A safe and supportive school climate can be one of the best tools in preventing bullying. Children need to feel safe or they can’t focus on learning.

The easiest way for teachers to take a hard line on bullying is to intervene immediately. It is important to only address the kids involved separately, never together. Also, forcing resolution in children will not teach them successful coping methods for the long term. Do not make the kids involved apologize or patch up relations on the spot

A recent survey of 250,000 children aged between 10 and 15 showed that nearly half have been bullied at school. And even if they had not been bullied, a quarter of the sample said they were worried about it.
Today, bullying does not just exist within the perimeter of the school. It can carry on day and night through the use of mobile phones and the internet via chat rooms and social media. In short, it can create a vicious cycle that can make a child or young person feel worthless and unvalued. Teachers are uniquely situated to stop bullying on the spot and create a safe learning environment in the school.

#3. Focus on personal strengths and relate to social media

The Internet and social media provide a platform for adolescent children to seek out images of what they want to look like, as well as an outlet through which children can perform outward comparisons with their peers and celebrities. Social media may not create new problems for children, but they do certainly intensify existing ones.

With social media, children are constantly critiquing and analyzing bodies in such a way that promotes body dissatisfaction, constant body surveillance, and disordered thoughts. All of these factors can lead to very serious vulnerabilities and make children susceptible to bullying.

Moving towards student-centered classrooms, which are big on collaboration, are one way teachers can begin to curb bullying by sharing control with students. Taking that one step further, teachers can become a participant and co-learner in discussion, asking questions and perhaps correcting misconceptions.

A simple activity is to give everyone a list of the personal strengths and get them to cross off the strength that is least like them one at a time until they reach three that are left. These are each person’s personal strengths. Consider getting everyone to write their personal strengths on stickers/paper and show them to the group.

Do students recognize the strength in themselves? What about the top strengths of others in the group? Identifying personal strengths is a great way to encourage positive feelings. In small groups, think of a way in which you could exercise your top personal strength more in the next week.

By facilitating a conversation about personal strengths and encouraging students to collaborate around this topic, teachers can begin to help children foster ideas of personal strengths.

In conclusion, by taking a hard line on bullying, focusing on personal strengths and teaching children to understand what’s realistic and what’s not, we can begin to help adolescent children encourage healthy body image now and always.

About the Author
Keir McDonald MBE is Chief Executive Office and Founder of EduCare, an online training solutions company that specialize in child protection, exploitation and online safety, and bullying and child neglect. EduCare is associated with both Kidscape and Family Lives and customers include over 4000 schools and colleges and 12000 pre-schools as well as councils, NHS, charities and more.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Current Ed News, EdTech & Innovation, Education Leadership, Education News,

Understanding the Teacher Shortage Crisis and the Solutions to Fix it

By Keith Lockwood

According to numerous sources, America is experiencing a nationwide teacher shortage that will undoubtedly escalate to a crisis within the next two years. Recent reports state that there are currently over 30,000 teacher vacancies this year that will increase to 70,000 over the next two years. The reasons for the decline in the number of teachers are correlated to teacher evaluation systems blended with high stakes standardized testing implemented over the past ten years, a shrinking student base in teacher education programs, a lack of respect for the teaching profession, and low salaries and benefits. These variables lead to challenging circumstances for urban, suburban and rural school districts across the country.

Read the rest of this article on The Huffington Post.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

Ask An Expert: Helping Students Avoid the Summer Slide

When the school year ends, teachers are happy to have a break from the drudgery of the school year, but they also want students to avoid the summer slide. The summer slide occurs when children lose some of the academic skills and dispositions that they gained during the school year due to the absence and scarcity of quality learning activities during summer vacation. As the old saying goes, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

To succeed academically, children need continuous opportunities to acquire new skills and practice existing ones. This need is especially heightened during the summer months, because children do not have the privilege of being educated by certified teachers. When we think of the summer months, we think of a happy carefree time when children can have fun and unwind. However, we forget about the potential learning opportunities that we can expose our children to. In order to make sure that your students do not experience the summer slide, here are some suggestions that your can give to their parents.

• Summer Programs: Many public and private schools run summer programs for their students. Take advantage of them. They are usually for only half a day and allow flexibility for summer vacations. Contact your child’s school to find out if they offer summer programs.

• Family Reading Program: Set up a summer reading program with your child in which they choose an agreed upon number of grade level books to read per month. Make sure that you consult the child’s teacher or a librarian for advice. In order to show solidarity, the entire family should participate.

• Specialized Summer Camps: Enroll your child in a specialized summer camp. These camps are fun and incorporate hands on activities into their curriculum as well. Some of the more popular ones include computer, science and math camps.

• Pick the Teachers Brain: Conference with your child’s current or next teacher and ask them to suggest summer workbooks, science activities, essay topics, and interesting summer activities for your child. You may even be able to elicit their help in assessing your child’s performance.

• Summer Enrichment: Summer is also a good time to fill in learning gaps. If you know that your child is weak in a particular subject, you may want to set up an enrichment program. Of course, as always, consult with your child’s teacher.

• Learning While Vacationing: If you are planning on taking a vacation this summer, you can turn it into a social studies activity. Ask your child to research the destination’s history, cuisine, popular attractions, etc. Also, once you reach your vacation destination, you can schedule tours of famous landmarks and locations, which will increase their social studies knowledge.

• Summer Journaling: Ask them to write a daily journal of all of the things that they learn each day. Remember, you will need to orchestrate learning activities for your children, because you can’t trust that they will be able to do it on their own.

• Turn Daily Activities Into Learning Opportunities: If you’re at the grocery store with your kids, challenge them to add up the total cost of your purchase. Driving to grandmother’s house? Ask them to find certain colors, shapes, or patterns along the way. If you’re dealing with older kids, think of appropriate variations.

• Learning Locally: Don’t forget about the local park, museum, zoo, aquarium, etc. Your local community is full of learning opportunities that you probably have never thought of.

Preventing summer slide can seem like a daunting task, but thankfully it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pull it off. All parents need is to be organized and have the right plan. With the list above, you can provide them with some simple strategies that they can use to prevent summer learning loss, without taking the fun out of summer. When the new school new year begins, your students will be armed with the skills that they retained from the previous year and hopefully some brand new ones. This will make your job as a teacher a whole lot better. Good luck!

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Current Ed News, EdTech & Innovation, Education Leadership, Education News,

Instead of textbooks, why not pay teachers for content?

By Brandon Wilmarth

As an English teacher in Oklahoma’s Moore Public Schools, I was recruited by some textbook providers to help them create content. It was a lot of fun, and I was happy to make some extra money doing it. But there are so many teachers in our district who are much more talented than I am. If I was developing curriculum materials that school systems across the nation were purchasing, they certainly could be doing this, too.

So when I became a technology integration specialist for the district, one of my long-term goals was to leverage the expertise of our teachers in creating high-quality digital content.

Teachers are already scouring the web for videos, articles, and other free instructional resources, then pulling these together into coherent lessons and adding their own valuable context to help students understand the material or promote deeper lines of inquiry.

My thought was, why don’t we take some of the money we’re hemorrhaging on expensive, print-based textbooks that aren’t interactive and don’t effectively capture students’ imagination—and use it to pay our teachers more money for their efforts instead?

Our vision is to create a central repository of exemplary digital content that is developed and curated by teachers, for teachers in our district. All teachers would have access to these shared instructional materials. Not all teachers would be required to contribute, but those who do could receive a stipend for their work if it’s approved as a district-vetted lesson or unit.

This would allow us to use our most powerful assets—our teachers—to their fullest potential, while also recognizing and giving value to teachers for the lesson planning and content creation they already do so well.

That’s important, because in Oklahoma, our teachers are among the lowest paid in the nation—and many leave the profession after only a few years. Honoring their talents and contributions could help stop this mass exodus of young teachers as well as veteran content experts and keep them in our schools.

To realize this vision, we needed to have a technology platform that would support teachers in creating and sharing digital lessons. We found this platform in Ogment, which helped us create curriculum by making it easier to grab digital content, including what we found on the web, and turn that into useable lessons for our classrooms.

Part of the problem is not the lack of resources, but rather the overabundance of resources. Every teacher knows how much great content exists online—but managing it all can be a nightmare. Ogment has let our teachers clip videos, articles, games, and other internet resources and put them into lessons or presentations with a simple drag-and-drop process. Then, they can embed questions within a lesson to check for students’ understanding or prompt further discussion—and they can easily share their lessons with other teachers.

Our teachers have used the service to “flip” their classrooms and even personalize instruction. For instance, Tiffany Truesdell, a math teacher at Westmoore High School, says she has used Ogment to make customized lessons for her students.

“I can assign a lesson that presents all the material, and as students go through the lesson, I can have questions that check for their understanding just as if I were presenting the material in class. I can pull videos from any website to enhance the lesson, and if I only want a small section of the video, Ogment lets me assign just that portion of the video in my lesson,” she says.

“Ogment also allows me to differentiate a lesson. For example, if I have a student on an IEP who needs multiple choice, but I want the other students to have a free response question, I can create the lesson once but with differentiated questions. When the questions come up, it will give the IEP student the multiple choice question instead.”

Mrs. Truesdell’s example shows that with the right technology, our district can build a shared repository of lessons that is truly usable. More importantly, a system like this allows our teachers to apply their talents and reignite their passion for creating great content.

We are working toward a model in which we pay teachers extra for the content they create and share through this tool. We’re not there yet; we’re still trying to free up the funding to be able to do this.

But when we come up with the funding to realize our vision, we’ll be able to pay our teachers extra for creating and sharing top-notch lessons—rewarding teachers for their work and restoring professionalism to the field.

Brandon Wilmarth is a technology integration specialist for Moore Public Schools in Oklahoma.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert

All Day Preschool Better Prepares Children for Kindergarten

A recent study has found that children who attend all-day preschool are much better prepared for Kindergarten than children who go to half-day programs.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs studied 1,000 3-and 4-year-olds enrolled in 11 Chicago schools. Students who attended preschool seven hours a day were compared to those who attended three hour programs, then tested at the commencement of preschool to see if they were socially and academically prepared to begin kindergarten.

The study found 59 percent of the students enrolled in the half-day program to be ready compared to 81 percent of the all-day preschool attendees.

In the fall of 2012, 78 percent of white students were prepared to enter kindergarten compared to 74 percent of black children and 62 percent of Native American and Hispanic students.

Early childhood education advocates say the results how Minnesota should invest in more preschool programs, and believe this move could help minimize the achievement gap between white students and minority students.

The study’s lead author Arthur Reynolds feels that the state should consider funding all-day preschool programs so all students are ready to learn when they enter school.

Last year, $40 million in funding for pre-K scholarships was approved for low- income families. Thanks to those dollars 5,800 students were able to attend preschool, but as many as 15,000 more students still need access to pre-K scholarships.

The importance of early childhood education cannot be stressed enough. This study goes to prove how important classroom hours are to best prepare students for kindergarten and the school years to follow. I am glad to see Minnesota contributed $40 million to pre-K last year, and hope the state can find ways to add even more dollars to help additional low-income families send their children to preschool.

 

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

How to Build a Teaching Portfolio

When applying for a teaching position, you’ll need to have a portfolio put together and ready for presentation to your potential employers. A teaching portfolio is a compilation of works collected throughout your teaching career that highlight your work and accomplishments. Portfolios can be used for various reasons, including as an evaluation tool when completing your teacher education program or when interviewing for a job.

A teaching portfolio should reflect your personality and highlight and describe who you are as a teacher. Although each portfolio is unique, all portfolios contain the same kinds of information. Materials are typically contained in a three-ring binder for easy access when updating. Items contained in a portfolio may be in print or audiovisual format.

1. Print Items

  • Your résumé.
  • Transcripts, test scores, sample lesson plans, curriculum materials, journal entries, writing assignments, sample tests and assignments that you’ve developed, samples of student work that reflect differentiation.
  • Sample letters to parents, sample letters from students or from parents, observation notes.
  • Formal assessments of your teaching, certificates of memberships to professional organizations, and any awards that you’ve won.

2. Audiovisual Items

  • Video and audio recordings featuring a sample of your teaching.
  • Pictures of bulletin boards, charts depicting room arrangements.

Digitize It

A digital portfolio is a teaching portfolio contained on an external storage device rather than a hard copy filed in a notebook. A digital portfolio will contain exactly the same information but in an easy-to-distribute format. Investing a little time can make your digital portfolio stand out. If you have the technical know-how, you can create the entire interface from scratch. If you don’t, there are a multitude of online tutorials that will guide you through the process. Or you could approach graphic design students or Web designers to assist you. If you don’t know any personally, you could invest a small amount of money upfront, which will go a long way toward making your application stand out. Presentations, videos, and audio clips can be stored on CDs or small mobile flash drives. Always ensure that you format your flash drive and scan it for viruses before adding your content, because damaging your potential employer’s computer software or hardware in an effort to impress may defeat the objective.

Organization of your portfolio is extremely important. A neat and well-prepared portfolio will show future employers that you are serious and capable of quality work. Begin by organizing documents into categories, and then fine-tune the details. Documents can be arranged in various ways. Having a logical plan is of utmost importance. Start by dividing documents into categories. Categories may include personal background information, instruction-related information, context information, contributions to the overall mission of the school, awards and recognitions, and many more. After developing the categories and sorting each resource into the appropriate category, develop a detailed table of contents for easy access and use. Subject dividers may be helpful to allow the potential employer easily find the document he or she is seeking.

Remember, your portfolio is first impression. You want it to be informational, clean-cut and as well-put-together as you can manage!

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

Promoting Student Achievement through Accountability and Assessment

Educators, parents, politicians, and concerned citizens agree that the American educational system is in poor shape, and that far reaching changes are needed for improvement. One illustration: in today’s junior high schools, more than 80 percent of Black and Latino students say they intend to go to college. For those who get to college, up to 60 percent require remedial work to prepare them for college courses. Furthermore, 25-50 percent of these students drop out of college after only one year.

Accountability in education refers to holding school districts, school administrators, educators and students responsible for demonstrating specific academic performance results. Accountability has become a word describing a whole host of educational activity, and is held up as a banner by some and feared by others. Throughout the country, policy makers are moving toward systems designed to reward educators for achievement and punish them for lack of improvement.

Historically, school system reform was guided by “inputs” into the system. Schools were given more resources, more funding, more staffing, and in some cases had added more days to the school year, in an attempt to improve learning outcomes. The focus on inputs did not necessarily lead to noticeable improvements in student achievement.

A paradox remains where low-performing schools are having the most difficult time making significant improvements. As a result, these schools risk losing funding and support they so desperately need to advance. Of course, many people are worried about making such huge funding and support decisions based on a single high-stakes test. Clearly, there are no easy answers to fixing our education system, but accountability and assessment are the current avenues we are taking. When discussing how to improve our educational system, it is important to understand the language and the relevant issues.

School reform can no longer rely mostly on giving schools more resources and more support. Time has shown that inputs have no real impact on student performance. Federal edicts, such as NCLB have enforced protocols based on standards, testing, and accountability. These standards emphasize performance objectives and require high levels of accountability from educators.

The required reforms, particularly those which impose sanctions similar to those imposed by NCLB, often create much stress and anxiety. Many educators ask whether it is fair to hold schools accountable for student achievement. And, even if it is “fair,” how are we to measure such achievement? What testing and evaluation formulas will be used? The answers to questions like this are not easy. Obviously, achievement can only be guaranteed if we assess it in some way. However, current assessment models are flawed.

Research suggests that standards and accountability may improve learning for some disadvantaged students, particularly those with disabilities. When some schools implement accountability guidelines, they promote an environment of increased collaboration among educators and create an environment where teachers expect all students to perform well academically, which in turn encourages better learning outcomes.

Some countries have been able to show effective and useful outcomes based on their use of certain accountability policies. However, American policy-makers and researchers still do not have any real evidence that these latest accountability reforms are working to improve outcomes for the vast majority of students.

Conversations around school accountability have been polarized. Politicians and parents often want to hold schools and teachers completely responsible for student achievement. Teachers point to disinterested students and uninvolved parents, saying that there is only so much they can do. But studies have shown that if teachers and students work together, and schools hold themselves accountable, great strides can be made. Open discussions of accountability and standards bring us to a place where schools are performing better and our children are learning. This is what the American education system should focus its attention and resources on. Then and only then can we make substantial progress in our quest to close the achievement gap.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Matthew Lynch

Ask An Expert: What are the Benefits and Drawbacks of Year Round Schools?

Question: I am considering taking an accounting job with a district that has year round schools. Since I am unfamiliar with the concept, I would like to know what the benefits and drawbacks are. Me and my husband have 3 school aged children, and we want to do what’s best for them. Virginia S.

Answer: Virginia, first of all, congratulations on the job offer. I know that it must be difficult for you and your husband to consider exposing your children to something that is unfamiliar. In this column, I will explain the benefits and drawbacks of year round schools, which will help you make a more informed decision concerning your job offer.

Many school districts around the country are in fact working toward extending the school year. As far as the benefits of year round schools, the shift in the time designated for teaching and learning helps students achieve more by minimizing summer learning loss, allowing for innovation and implementation of creative programs, and providing the time needed to assist children who need extra help.

Research seems to back up these claims, as it shows that time may be the most essential resource of the education system. However, it is important to recognize that merely  extending the school year is not a panacea for improving student performance. It is necessary to utilize the available time in the best possible manner. If educators fail to convert the available time to quality teaching and learning time, the increased school year will not improve student performance.

While I have pointed out the many benefits of a longer school year, there are also some drawbacks. The major drawback is the assumed detriment to family structure. American families have become accustomed to the traditional long summer vacation. Parents may find it difficult to schedule vacations and family reunions. This concern is not to be dismissed, as it is important to children’s development to spend quality time with their families.

Childcare could also become a concern, particularly if multiple, shorter school vacations were scheduled throughout the year, at times when parents are working. Extracurricular activities are another dimension of schooling that can be negatively influenced by year-round schooling. Teachers managing extracurricular activities have observed difficulties adapting these activities into a year-round schooling schedule.

Another area of concern when adapting to year-round schooling schedules is its effect on the administration. School administrators have sometimes found it difficult to deal with licensure and contractual issues of the teachers when working out schedules for year-round schools. It can also be difficult to plan the optimal use of school buildings. Of course, a serious issue is finding ways to best leverage this new, extended school year to increase quality instruction time. In short, year-round schools require the administrative blocks of schools to keep working throughout the year, which increases the administrative burden.

At the end of the day, you have to compare and contrast the benefits and drawbacks of year round schools with your families situation. Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks or vice versa? I hope my column will assist you and your husband in making an informed decision. Good luck, and let me know how it goes.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Equity, Matthew Lynch

Ask an Expert: Authentic Diversity

Question: Dr. Lynch, I am an African American man whose son is being recruited by a large state university in the south. However, my friend informed me that this university doesn’t have the proper supports in place for minority students, and doesn’t have many minority faculty members. It sounds like this university only embraces diversity to be more marketable. Should I be concerned? Wayne R.

Answer: Wayne, thanks for sending this my way. It is not unusual for colleges and universities to have aggressive diversity recruitment programs in place when it comes to students and faculty. After all, a blanket priority for schools is to have student and faculty populations that are as varied as possible.

Pardon my cynicism here, but who exactly do these recruitment programs really benefit? Successful recruitment in this regard creates a visual diversity that looks good on college brochures and websites, but it is only skin-deep. A recent episode of Modern Family referenced this visual diversity when oldest Dunphy daughter Haley made the following observation about a community college mailer she received:

“At least this one doesn’t have that fakie lunchtime shot of the black guy, Asian girl and an Indian… oh, wait, there it is! Wow, that wheelchair kid is really cracking everybody up.”

It got a laugh from me and millions of other viewers who have seen this all too often in college recruitment. If a school can convince potential students that there are others already there, just like them, then enrollment numbers rise – along with revenue. While that may improve bottom line and freshman diversity, long-term retention and student success programs are often not considered. Who is on hand to give these marginalized, trophy students support when the reality of college demands sets in?

While diversity of the student population gets a lot of press, this is not the only group universities target for variety. Increasingly, colleges are seeking out minority faculty members that fit certain criteria and are meant to dispel the myth that professors are usually “old, white guys.” It’s a slow go, however. While 30 percent of the undergraduate population are considered minority students, only 12 percent of faculty are in the minority category. For minority faculty numbers to rise, schools need to make sure they are creating welcoming environments that encourage success. The sad truth is that many minority faculty members did not have many, if any, professors or instructors “like them” when they were earning their degrees and so they are blazing their own trails when it comes to their ethnicity, race and position of authority. It is not enough for schools to recruit diverse talent; they must cultivate those skills to retain those faculty members long term.

An example of a college with strong recruitment and follow up when it comes to diversity is the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The school graduates 70 percent of its black student population and 65 percent of Latino students. These are not just lucky numbers, but are the result of a concentrated program called the Educational Opportunity Program. Designed to target first-generation, low-income college students, EOP includes mandatory study hours and meetings with academic success counselors. Instead of leaving students to their own devices, the program assumes students need that extra encouragement for success.

Other colleges are on board with this idea of hands-on guidance too. The North Carolina Community College Minority Male Mentoring Program incorporates networking and developmental courses to improve retention and ultimately graduation rates for minorities. The University of Florida has a medical school minority mentoring program designed to connect students and health professionals.  The University of Alabama in Huntsville has a freshman minority mentorship initiative that requires mentors to meet at least once each month with their students.

Programs like these provide a bridge between diverse student recruitment and minority retention and graduation. They go beneath the appearance of a student population to address the real people involved. With more of a push in this mentorship direction, more minority students like your son will graduate workplace-ready and less will become collateral damage in university diversity initiatives.

 

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