Graduation. It’s an iconic scene. It’s the same everywhere. A universal passage of sorts. I experienced my sixth graduation from Camp El Valor, six graduations in three years. And now my summer job is over.

Graduation. It is always so final. A coming of age ritual that symbolizes the end of something and the beginning of something else. The graduation for the second half of Camp El Valor brings a bit more symbolism for me. Another summer gone; my favorite job of all time over again for another year. I hope not forever. The August graduation symbolizes back to school, and I am without a teaching job.

At El Valor’s summer camp graduation, diplomas were passed out and accolades were given to those of us who encouraged the children and pushed them to learn more about science and technology. This time, my sixth and possibly last time, I invited my husband to come and witness the celebration, a celebration that always leaves me affected with emotion and excited about the future. I had described it to him before. He had read my previous blog about parent testimonials. But he had to see it to believe it, and he was moved by his experience.

“It just felt like such a shared feeling,” he said. “Like the community was coming together to celebrate the power of education. Everyone just seemed so happy and so proud. It made me feel like it should be easy to make the changes that need to be made (in public education).”

When the parents talk about how happy they are to have this community center that offers such a high quality, free summer camp program for their children, everyone listening feels affected. We feel motivated. We feel lucky to be part of something so inspirational. And we know that there are not enough programs like this one.

The happiness is something my husband comes back to when I ask him to expound on his experience at graduation. I like hearing the experience coming from someone else. “There was this shared feeling of pride and happiness," he went on. "I thought about how all people, everyone, go through this ritual at some point or another. Usually multiple times. Parents and children all dressed up. Everyone feeling festive and happy and talkative. Eating. Drinking (coffee and juice)…” My husband continued talking and I began thinking about what he said. There is a shared feeling of happiness. A universal feeling we all share when we watch our children succeed, because it means we’ve succeeded. Through education, we can succeed as a society.

I want to thank El Valor and the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum for giving me the opportunity again this summer. Working as a Technology Educator with the kids this year was, as always, an amazing experience. Working with the tutors, who are all such intelligent and wonderful role models, and 15 to 18 students in the classroom at one time gave us all an opportunity to get to know one another. The field trips deepened the friendships formed. Everybody was learning while enjoying themselves. The children enjoyed fresh fruit and vegetable snacks and spent an hour and 15 minutes at lunch and recess where they enjoyed brutal games of dodge ball and fast action soccer. Sometimes everyone was required to play, but not always. Some kids just sat under the trees and played UNO. Another fierce competition.

But in the classroom, there was only helping. All of us helping one another to learn more. Four weeks of building a community that will hopefully last a lifetime. Rolando Madrid, the Educational Director at El Valor, is, as my husband agrees, one of the most motivational speakers we've ever heard, and we've heard some good ones. His successes are due in large part to his belief in community and partnerships.

I understand that not everyone can build a community center. Not everyone has the time to volunteer. Heck, I don't even have a job or real health insurance! But if every single person found a meaningful way to give back to the community, maybe there wouldn't be so many children being "left behind." It's all about community.

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Institutionalized discrimination. What is it?

“If a particular group is disproportionately absent in comparison to the pool of those possessing the relevant skills, discrimination is occurring even if it is impossible to document specific individual instances.” – Jo Freeman

Have you noticed that minority students are disproportionately absent from high school graduations across this country? It is a fact that Black and Hispanic youth are more likely than non-Hispanic whites to drop out of high school. In 2004, 12 percent of blacks and 24 percent of Hispanics ages 16 to 24 had not graduated from high school, compared with 7 percent of non-Hispanic whites.

This leads me to the question, are certain high schools with low minority graduation rates limiting social and economic opportunities for those who attend these schools? I think so. We face numerous problems as we commit ourselves to challenging the exclusion of many Americans from full participation in our society, and one major problem is public education.

Today at El Valor, I did something I’ve never done before… I “acted” in a commercial! (I played the part of a science teacher and steamed up a pair of goggles.) It is a commercial to be aired on TV meant to show parents that they have options when it comes to high schools for their children. Options like private schools that offer financial assistance, charter schools and magnet schools. Going to high school is a life changing experience, where a child becomes a young adult. The quality of the high school helps determine if and where a student goes to college. The student’s peer group in high school plays a huge part in his or her academic success. And this is what parents want for their children: academic success.

Across this country, the academic institutions called high schools that many of us remember so fondly (though hopefully NOT as the best years of our lives) are not the safe halls of academia we might recall. I once worked in a school where I saw the police paddy wagon parked nearly everyday after school, waiting to arrest students who were known participants in criminal behavior, mostly drugs and gang violence. Is this where you’d want your child to go to high school? It certainly offered little in the ways of academic success.

The inequality of education in this country is unacceptable. The challenges we face today in many public schools include the lingering effects of racism and poverty. Until we face these challenges, they will perpetuate institutionalized discrimination as proven in the dropout rates, as well as incarceration rates.

But how can we change what we often do not see? Educating communities about school choice seems like a good place to start, though there are many more students than there are good schools from which to choose. Until we, as American citizens, start wanting academic success for every child in this country the way we want academic success for our own children, institutionalized discrimination will continue.

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Today at Tech Camp, my friend/colleague told me her story. She is taking a serious pay cut to switch from public schools to museum education. A $14,000 pay cut. She told me she loved the kids but couldn’t deal with the crazy administrative rules that, I believe, stifle the true art of teaching. A few things really summed up her five plus years as a public school teacher, but one story stood out in her mind above the rest.

My friend was evaluated for her performance in her Kindergarten class. She was a first-year teacher at the time and had many children who hadn’t been to preschool. Twenty-eight kids and no aid. The grades of the evaluation were S for Superior and E for Excellent. My friend received all E’s so she went to her principal to ask what she could do to improve, to get all S’s. The principal told her that she needed to be using her workbooks more. She could get better control of the class if the children used the workbooks. Do we want our children doing workbooks in order to keep class control in overcrowded classrooms? Do we know who’s writing the workbooks? Informed scholars, I hope.

On June 25, President George W. Bush discussed the No Child Left Behind Reauthorization with his Presidential scholars.

"The reason I've asked to speak to you is because I want people to understand how important this No Child Left Behind Act is to America and its future. And we will talk about ways to make the law better. I know some members and senators have got concerns about the law, and we're more than willing to talk about flexibility. But there is no compromise when it comes to setting high standards and measurement. You cannot compromise away the principle of saying, we expect good results, and we're going to measure to determine whether or not we've achieved those results. And when you've achieved the results that we, a society, expect, we'll give you the big embrace."

The last part of the Bush quote bothers me. “We” is our society, including the president. So that makes “you,” the scholars he’s put in place to fix what is broken with our educational system. “And when you've achieved the results that we, a society, expect, we'll give you the big embrace." This implies that American society is waiting to give those scholars a “big embrace” (cash reward?) because they will achieve high standards for all children. Personally, I do not expect that the group of Presidential scholars will fix problems that exist in public education: overcrowding, poor nutritional choices, workbook learning, millions of future American citizens in urban and rural America who see no point in graduating from high school... These are changes we need to demand and help facilitate as a community. But how do we do that?

As teachers, parents and community members, we know that children are facing serious educational problems. Many are similar to those we faced, and others are of a new brand. Educational budget cuts are imminent. Problems are becoming more expensive.

Speaking of problems, according to a report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers on the infrastructure of the United States, "The Federal government has not assessed the condition of America's schools since 1999, when it estimated that $127 billion was needed to bring facilities to good condition. Other sources have since reported a need as high as $268 billion. Despite public support of bond initiatives to provide funding for school facilities, without a clear understanding of the need, it is uncertain whether schools can meet increasing enrollment demands and the smaller class sizes mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act." What is a small class size? Twenty-eight Kindergarteners is not small, nor is thirty-one 6th graders.

We all live in communities with problems. What is our role in combating those problems? Would you want your child to spend a day in the worst public school, just to have the experience? Is a teacher’s job to merely teach the curriculum using workbooks and prescribed formulas? Is it the community’s job to sit back and hope that their local public schools are doing an ok job?

What do you think?

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Two weeks ago, I was on vacation in northern Minnesota and I was in the country. Midway through the week, we were running low on necessary vacation beverages, so my husband and I drove 30 miles on dirt and paved country roads to the nearest convenient store. While in “town” at this shop, we took a few moments to watch FOX-ified CNN on the television that hung prominently in a well-viewed corner. (Note: Over the bar.) I learned three things in less than 10 seconds. The Dow had dropped by 300 points, Lindsay Lohan was off the wagon and, horror of horrors, FAT IS CONTAGIOUS!

Obesity is a rampant problem across this country. All one has to do is stand in the greet zone at a major Midwestern airport to see the truth in this statement. But it is taboo to talk about. Fat is a politically incorrect term. Yet there seems to be a lot more overweight kids now than in the past. More fat people all together. And that makes sense, if fat is contagious.

Am I responsible as a teacher to let a child know he or she is getting fat? I see students returning to tech camp this summer, kids I taught two summers ago. Some are unrecognizable because they’ve grown up so much between 10 and thirteen. A few girls and boys have really packed on the pounds. It is crushing to see a beautiful child turned into a self-loathing adolescent because of obesity. (And many other problems, for sure.)

More often than not, the overweight child comes from an overweight family. Eating habits are emotionally tied to the family. Much time is required to change eating habits and I think it is important to start with the child in the classroom. Healthy Life Styles should be taught from a holistic approach surrounding nutrition, exercise and sustainability. Nutrition and math go well together. One pound equals around 3,500 calories. There are many word problems to write around that one statement. And think of Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard project. How could you (or I) start something like this in our own communities? Change takes place at a grassroots level.

But the reality is, there are few schools doing projects like this. Many schools still spend money on nasty, albeit “nutritionally balanced”, processed-food pre-made lunches, and in many schools, breakfasts, too, packed with empty carbohydrates. How hard is it to provide a healthy, well-balanced meal? As hard as it is to get a group of people together to start a community project???

Poor nutrition, at home and in schools, is one problem contributing to low performing schools in America. Teaching children about nutrition from a young age, especially in low performing schools where children often have hot chips and a sugary drink for breakfast and/or lunch, seems like a logical way to combat the heath problems AND health care and insurance issues of the future. (Obesity is causing expenditures in health care to explode in this country and is directly linked to diabetes, heart disease and many types of cancer.) Teaching children how to search for food growing in their local communities also promotes a healthier lifestyle.

A quick story to end: Last year I was in my local pharmacy/drugstore purchasing popcorn for the Christmas Party. It was 7:45ish in the a.m. and I remember because I was running late. A mother was in the store with her young daughter. She looked around four, but she was older. I know because the checker asked the mother, “Your daughter’s so cute! How old is she?”

“She’s in second grade.” The mother responded while holding her daughter’s wrist in an eagle’s grip. Moments before I watched her ask her daughter what she wanted for breakfast. The daughter chose Firey Hot Chips and a can of Coke.

As teachers and parents, how should we envision the school’s role in helping to fight obesity? What is our role in influencing nutritional choices? As a teacher, what does your school lunch look like? As a parent, what does your child eat during the day? Is fat contagious?

Posted by at 8:46 PM | Permalink | 26 Comments | Recommend