AMLE World Cafe Session
The Association for Middle Level Education Conference will be held in Nashville, TN, on November 6-8, 2014. I am very excited to be co-hosting a World Cafe Conversation with Nancy Doda during the conference. The session, titled, Leveraging the Legacy: Reigniting Commitment to Middle School Ideals, will be held Thursday, November 6, from 2:30-3:45 p.m. in Presidential Ballroom A. John Lounsbury will be providing opening remarks to the session. Nancy Doda and Tracy Smith will provide a description of the World Cafe process, which participants can take back to their schools and districts to engage students, teachers, parents, administrators, and community members in courageous conversations about middle level education. Patti Kinney, Howard Johnston, Mark Springer, Edward Brazee, and Paul George will serve as table hosts in the World Cafe conversation. To open the session, we will have a presentation of inspirational quotations ( Legacy Project Slides) from middle grades founders and prominent teachers. We will also have some slides that provide information about the World Cafe Process (Leveraging the Legacy_2014).
Roots and Branches (A “Where I’m From” Poem”)
I am from yard sales and the Goodwill Store, buying second-hand treasures with my own money.
I am from hush puppies and coleslaw, biscuits and gravy, and corned beef hash, made from secret family recipes in the kitchens grandmothers and family-owned fish camps and barbeque restaurants.
I am from pride, hard work, and independence.
I am from shot gun and common law unions, where spontaneity and putting things off were equally valued, but planning seldom happened.
I am from Farrah Fawcett hair, blue eye shadow, and Bonnie Bell bubble gum lip gloss – in a time when I longed to own skin tight Calvin Kleins or Levi’s and canvas Nikes with a light blue swoosh (though no one knew at the time it was called a swoosh).
I am from Hudson Hornets – where dressing out meant green shorts and a white t-shirt that I had to share with a friend.
I am from handwritten notes to friends – with curly ques and ♥s and BFF and LYLAS, carefully and craftily folded and then exchanged between classes.
I am from a world that was “a little bit country” and a “little bit rock n’ roll,” where Jimmy Buffet, the Eagles, Skeeter Davis, Bob Seger, and Willie Nelson spun on the turntable and blasted from the speakers while the dusting and laundry were done.
Regrettably, I am from Grease and Urban Cowboy and Saturday Night Fever.
I am from yard dogs with sophisticated names – wiener dogs with polysyllabic German names and chows with names that Chinamen might envy. Canines with international heritage were the only diversity of my youth.
I am from early first jobs at Odum’s, Tim’s Discount Foods, Shoney’s, and Mister Omelet.
I am from people with names like General and Gladys and Vernice, names my parents avoided when they gave me a popular, non-gender specific name – at least it was popular then.
I am from textile workers, truck drivers, real estate agents, and small-town entrepreneurs.
I am from Cajah’s Mountain, where everyone knew the town mayor, the town gossip, and the town drunk…and sometimes they were the same.
Young Adolescents are First Members of Families
Last week in our CI 5750 class, we were examining young adolescents’ physical; emotional; and moral, religious, and character development. I have to say our conversations turned bleak pretty quickly. Reflecting on our conversations of the evening, so much was connected (blamed?) on lack of parental involvement. We did discuss the obstacles parents and families face: economic difficulties, meal acquisition and preparation, managing hectic schedules of multiple family members, lack of confidence in parenting and in their own education. Still, it seems we came to realize how important parents and families are – they are the key to our students’ healthy development. Though we spend many hours with our students, our hope is that they have a consistent support system when they are not with us. So, how can we bolster and support families – in order to support our students as they develop into adults?
Last year, I attended a session about parental involvement at the Association for Middle Level Education Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. David Shepard, the presenter gave us a list of 50 strategies for involving parents and families. I offer those strategies here and challenge us all to think of more ways. The list seems a bit outdated in terms of technology. I am especially interested in how we might use the myriad technology tools available to us to include our students’ families in our decision making, community building, and developmentally responsive approaches to educating young adolescents. I welcome your additional ideas and comments!
50 Techniques to Connect with Parents and Families
1. Be sure that EVERY student in the school has an adult advocate who has regular contact with the student AND the parents.
2. Arrange flexible hours for all records/conference days. Schedule evenings, before school, Saturdays, etc. Parents work during the day also.
3. Hold open house, family night, and/or parents’ night to introduce families to teachers, programs, facilities, and curriculum.
4. Supply all visitors with a courtesy comment card when at school to seek feedback on the environment for those coming to school.
5. Set aside a shelf in the school media center for parenting materials. Have pamphlets, videos, and books on young adolescents available.
6. Provide parents with a free copy of H.E.L.P. and MORE H.E.L.P. from NMSA (now AMLE) when they come to school for meetings and/or activities.
7. Use a student assignment book, agenda, or weekly newspaper to be sure that parents are informed of what is and will be happening in the school. Have parents sign off that they have seen it.
8. Do faculty bus tours to different areas of the district to provide the opportunity to visit homes. Take the faculty on the bus and give them each several homes to visit. Advertise this event to parents.
9. Hold ice cream socials, pot luck dinners, chili suppers, team picnics as a way of getting parents together in a non-academic way.
10. Adopt a 3-ring maximum on all phone lines in the building. Train and practice professional, friendly greetings for all student helpers and staff to use.
11. Provide parent education workshops for specific subject areas and for tips on living with the young adolescent.
12. Set up, advertise, and staff “Homework Huddle” locations at civic centers or business sites in the neighborhood for both drop in help and scheduled appointments. Be willing to meet on “foreign turf.”
13. Publish and agenda, folder, refrigerator magnet, laminated index card or flyer that has phone numbers of people to contact at school and how to access help/information.
14. Establish a phone system which provides a voice mail, homework hotline, activity line, and a parent hotline (parent line monitored by the PTA/PTO/PTSA in a parent-to-parent mode).
15. Call parents with good news about their kids on a regular basis. Set a tone of positive communication early in the year. Use school post cards. (Hi, I just wanted to say thank you for allowing me the opportunity to teach Felisha. She is a joy to have in class.)
16. Do parent/ student overnight lock-ins. Open the gym, have family games, scary movies, light night snacks and an opportunity to be with staff. Sleeping bags and pillows are the order of the day!
17. Use student-led conferences to assure that everyone is accurately informed of students’ progress. Keep and provide the parent a written record of the proceedings.
18. Set up conferences that focus on strengths and are devoid of physical barriers or “power” set ups not littered with educational jargon and produce a product.
19. Establish a support group for single parents of students. The schools need to only supply the space and the initial information.
20. As educators, practice CPR (courtesy, professionalism, respect) at all times with parents and have students practice with each other.
21. Provide opportunities for students to work on community service projects both inside and outside of the school. Encourage families to work together on such projects.
22. Hold a Parent University on a Saturday or at night. Have parents go through three or four sample classes with authentic tasks, lessons, and exams. (We have done portfolio writing, performance events, and open-response questions.).
23. Facilitate the development of a parental network for help in knowing what is really happening on the social science scene among young adolescents. Encourage parents to call the parents of the other students when they question party plans or other social activities.
24. Get wired and go online. With so many computers and SMART devices, you can often send information and reminders via email or other e-communication. There are so many possibilities.
25. Place one whole set of textbooks in the public library. Too many kids forget at this age and having access to materials allows them to keep up.
26. Use “Feel, Felt, Found” as a common strategy during communications with parents to show support and empathy.
27. Have parents do demonstrations or teach lessons during open house sessions. Involve as many students as possible to encourage parents to attend.
28. If they won’t come to you, go to them. Schedule parent meetings, parenting sessions, conference opportunities and special programs in neighborhood churches or office buildings. Who said the chorus has to do the winter concert at school?
29. Invite parents to offer mini-courses to students on specific topics or in their areas of expertise. This could be a one-shot event or a monthly endeavor.
30. Schedule a Heritage Day/Genealogy Day with the emphasis on “Where Do We Come From?” Involve parents and Grandparents in storytelling. This is a great way to promote cultural awareness and appreciation of diversity.
31. Offer current and accurate health education information to both students and their parents. Have an annual health/wellness fair with the area professionals.
32. Regularly invite small groups of parents to join their children for breakfast with the boss, lunch with the leaders, coffee klatches (A casual social gathering for coffee and conversation.), etc. (5-7 students, 5-7 parents, 2 or 3 school leaders).
33. Clip any newspaper or magazine articles with student’s name or picture and send them home with a good-job note to the parents.
34. Invite parents to come to school on picture day and have their picture taken with their child. Don’t have the photographer set up in the library, just have him take two shots, a single and a group.
35. Communicate the curriculum in an easy to read pamphlet for each grade level. List topics to be covered, approximate months of coverage and specific projects that may require extra time.
36. When talking to parents, always ask for help, assistance, or their thoughts first in addressing school concerns. The quickest way to make an enemy of a parent is to state “you need to do________about________.
37. Establish a parent advisory board to work with each team or grade level. Their job is to publicize what the team is doing and make sure all parents are informed. They may also help with field trips, integrated units, and middle school social activities.
38. Adopt school policies which outline measures to increase parent involvement. You cannot assume it will just happen. Plan, prepare, and facilitate involvement. (Committees, team parents, site-based councils, parent surveys, etc.)
39. If possible, provide an open gym or family night activities for parents and kids together. Let the parents of kids do the planning by team or grade level. (3-on-3 basketball, line dancing, academic competition, kids vs. parents Olympics.)
40. Participate in Partners for Learning: Preparing Teachers to Involve Families
41. Set up a parent manned welcome station at the main entrance to the building. (Direct visitors, answer questions, pass out school literature, etc.)
42. Establish a Family Resource Center/Youth Service Center staffed by full-time parent contact persons. Coordinate government agency information (Health, Legal, Child Care, Food Stamp Services, under one roof.)
43. Develop a parent handbook of guidelines and tips. (Hosting a party, how to set up a conference, developing effective study habits, how to interpret/measure student success.)
44. Continually monitor and record involvement. Survey parents on why they come to school, ask why and find out what they need from the school.
45. Develop and implement a school-wide policy that includes parental participation.
46. Recognize parent efforts to become involved. Send thank-you notes to volunteers and chaperones, congratulations on a new birth, follow-up phone calls after a conference, and notes of praise for positive changes in behavior or academics.
47. When assigning take-home tests, include a parent question to answer that is experienced based (from a parent’s perspective) for extra credit.
48. Establish a variety of advisory or advocacy options for parents of special needs children. Inclusion, collaboration or consultation models expand experiences for students which allows for positive parent reactions.
49. Work hard at making the physical facility clean, neat, orderly, inviting, and welcoming to parents. Display lots of student work on the walls.
50. Don’t ever, ever, ever quit trying to reach the unreachable. Ever.
51. Another Idea:
52. Another idea:
53. Another idea:
54. Another idea:
David A. Shepard, Lead Consultant
Middle Matters
David A. Shepard, Lead Consultant
Middle Matters
In Memoriam, Gordon F. Vars
In Memoriam, Gordon F. Vars, Age 88
On Tuesday, January 31, 2012, the middle school community lost one of its five founding fathers. Gordon F. Vars was struck by a car while walking across the street, after being dropped off from choir practice. Vars, who had been a proponent of the junior high school, became instrumental in the move toward middle schools beginning in the 1960s. I had an opportunity to interview Gordon in November 2003. He told me that he made the decision to become an educator while “sitting in foxholes in Europe in World War II reflecting on what [he] wanted to do with [his] life if [he] got out of that scrap with a whole skin.” He decided he wanted to work with people and ideas rather than with things.
Gordon was a widely-acclaimed expert and an articulate spokesperson for core curriculum. He served as the first President of the National Middle School Association and was one of the authors of the first edition of This We Believe, the seminal philosophy statement of the National Middle School Association, which is now in its fourth edition.
According to the 2005 book The Encyclopedia of Middle Grades Education, “Gordon Vars has been a proponent of core curriculum since his first education course as an undergraduate at Antioch College. His career has been devoted to teaching about and advocating for core curriculum.
Vars taught in Kent State University’s College of Education from 1966 until 1993. Kent Schools Superintendent Joe Giancola called Vars “a good friend” who was on the committee that guided Giancola through his doctorate at KSU. “He was a great teacher. He was always very comprehensive and very conscientious with everything he did with his students,” Giancola said. “He kind of walked me through my masters and doctoral degrees. No matter what I turned in, he always had notes in the margins: ‘Do more. Go back. Read more.’ It was always ‘more, more, more,’ to expand the concept.”
The longtime president of the National Association for Core Curriculum, Vars later helped the Kent schools design and develop the curriculum for Stanton Middle School, which opened in 1999.
“He gave us a lot of things to think about and advice when we were building our new middle school,” Giancola said. KSU later hosted the NACC’s annual conference, and Vars “was at the very heart of all of that,” he said. “He was very proper,” Giancola said. “Very conservative, but liberal-thinking as an educator. He was a man of great dignity.”
Editorial by Gordon Vars: Change – and the Junior High, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1965: http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/journals/ed_lead/el_196512_vars.pdf
Sources for this post:
http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/5153013
http://kent.patch.com/articles/kent-state-professor-emeritus-dies-after-being-hit-by-car
Smith, T.W., & McEwin, C.K. (2011) The legacy of middle level leaders: In their own words. Information Age Publishers: Charlotte, NC.
Additional information: http://www.amle.org/Advocacy/MessagesfromAMLE/DrGordonVars/tabid/2578/Default.aspx
Roots and Branches (A “Where I’m From” Poem”)
I am from yard sales and the Goodwill Store, buying second-hand treasures with my own money.
I am from hush puppies and coleslaw, biscuits and gravy, and corned beef hash, made from secret family recipes in the kitchens grandmothers and family-owned fish camps and barbeque restaurants.
I am from pride, hard work, and independence.
I am from shot gun and common law unions, where spontaneity and putting things off were equally valued, but planning seldom happened.
I am from Farrah Fawcett hair, blue eye shadow, and Bonnie Bell bubble gum lip gloss – in a time when I longed to own skin tight Calvin Kleins or Levi’s and canvas Nikes with a light blue swoosh (though no one knew at the time it was called a swoosh).
I am from Hudson Hornets – where dressing out meant green shorts and a white t-shirt that I had to share with a friend.
I am from handwritten notes to friends – with curly ques and ♥s and BFF and LYLAS, carefully and craftily folded and then exchanged between classes.
I am from a world that was “a little bit country” and a “little bit rock n’ roll,” where Jimmy Buffet, the Eagles, Skeeter Davis, Bob Seger, and Willie Nelson spun on the turntable and blasted from the speakers while the dusting and laundry were done.
Regrettably, I am from Grease and Urban Cowboy and Saturday Night Fever.
I am from yard dogs with sophisticated names – wiener dogs with polysyllabic German names and chows with names that Chinamen might envy. Canines with international heritage were the only diversity of my youth.
I am from early first jobs at Odum’s, Tim’s Discount Foods, Shoney’s, and Mister Omelet.
I am from people with names like General and Gladys and Vernice, names my parents avoided when they gave me a popular, non-gender specific name – at least it was popular then.
I am from textile workers, truck drivers, real estate agents, and small-town entrepreneurs.
I am from Cajah’s Mountain, where everyone knew the town mayor, the town gossip, and the town drunk…and sometimes they were the same.
Middle Grades, Motherhood, and Other Musings 