ED 100 CC 3

This was our third and final current connection. We covered the articles from pages 273-301. I focused on pages 279-283. But if we start from the beginning, the first article was “From Outrage to Organizing” by Ikechukwo Onyema. This was about police brutality and the freedom of schools. The police brutality was aimed towards African Americans. The students in classrooms were being punished for no reason. So they created “Freedom Schools”. So they got the students and the teachers together to try to stop this problem. But they also wanted to inform everyone about what was happening and why. The would give students “the talk” where they would explain what to do around police but that was only for African Americans. The whites/others would talk about “the birds and bees”. I never thought of it that way and it opened my eyes to the way that African Americans may feel about that and how they would act. But in a lot of places this is still happening when it obviously shouldn’t be. The second chapter was, “Why Community Schools?”. This is the topic that I focused on. The main thing this covered was the six pillars that the NEA (National Education Association) has come up with. These six pillars include, Strong and Culturally Relevant Curriculum,  High-Quality Teaching, Inclusive/Shared Leadership, Community Support Services, Positive Disciple Practices, and Family and Community Engagement. Strong and Culturally Relevant Curriculum discussed how educators engage students with challenging, culturally relevant curriculum. The wanted other to learn to value all people and how to stand up and act to promote democracy and justice. The curriculum of this includes: Students’ lives and heritage, additional languages, fine arts, physical education, and before and after school programs. Then I moved onto High-Quality Teaching. They wanted to emphasize how community schools are places of inspiration and freedom, where creating student-centered classrooms, teaching problem-solving, and engaging students with challenging curricula are a central focus. The third section was Inclusive/shared Leadership. They taught how leadership is a responsibility. How leadership wasn’t just by teachers but how it needed to be shown by the principles, the parents, the staff members, the community, and of course the students and teachers. Community Support Services was the fourth pillar. Community schools are the “hub” (center) of their community. They provide a host of services: Meals, healthcare, mental health counseling, and others during and after school such as tutoring. The fifth pillar is, Positive Discipline Practices. This is where discipline is dealt in the way that students are punished not in reaction to a situation, but instead out of a desire to make a positive change. The sixth, and final, pillar is Family and Community Engagement. Where parents and community are full partners in the schools, have substantive roles, and are all well respected. I connected this to an article called, “Meeting the Needs of Students with Community Schools”. I also connected this to an article called, “What is a Community School?”. This is the article I used in my presentation. They also included the NEA, which I had discussed earlier. They answered the questions as to why these schools are and why we have them. I thought this section was super interesting and that’s why I picked to cover it. Next was the story, “Aren’t you on the Parent Listserv?”. This was about a teacher, Grace, who worked at a bilingual school. She wanted to make the rules so that communication should be bilingual to keep things fair. Then came the article, “Blood on the Tracks”. It covered segregation in schools, stereotypes, classes, and inner school systems. The next article was, “Little Kid’s, Big Ideas”. This was about how a second grader wanted to start everything over. But that was because of something he heard. What I took away from this was simply the fact that teachers need to make sure they are staying on top of things to make sure students are hearing hearing the truth, things appropriate for their age, etc. Overall, I think we had a very long section which is why this blog post is so long, so my apologies but I wanted to put everything in. But as my last current connection for the class, I felt very good about it overall.

Presentation https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1uQ7AFJvq2I4nD81gablacLv-j3jKK2tm8aFMGTci4vw/edit#slide=id.p

Articles

https://www.nea.org/student-success/great-public-schools/community-schools#:~:text=Because%20learning%20does%20not%20happen,of%20services%20that%20children%20need.%20(National%20Education%20Association)

http://76.227.216.38/aboutschools/what_is_a_community_school.aspx