A thinking space
connecting bottom of the pyramid high school students
to post high school education.
December 8, 2007
The context
1. The purpose of formal education systems is to create citizens who are life long learners.
2. In a world changing as fast as this one, "training for a job" is no longer enough because in 2 or 5 or 10 years that job may no longer exist.
3. Given the new resources to learn, 20th century organizational forms of education are only one of many routes to continue learning.
4. The challenge with Bottom of the Pyramid students is that formal 20th century education has not yet worked for many of them.
But it is still the most reliable way to keep them engaged in the learning process.
Action implications
helping them make the connection between high school and post-high school learning organizations can be life changing for these students.
Note that this implies that "getting them accepted by a college" is the necessary step one, but will not lead to significant improvement without taking into consideration interventions that might be necessary to increase their chance of success once they get to college.
The reality on the ground
Any student who can graduate, or get a GED, or even reach the age of 20 can go to college in New York City. The CUNY system has a number of relatively inexpensive non competitive colleges whose mission is to engage and train every New Yorker to continue learning. There is a story of a student who started at a NYC community college and then transferred to Columbia University on a full scholarship. There are many stories of students starting at community college then moving to a 4 year college after having learned the necessary skills and attitudes.
The better students at the Bottom of the Pyramid sometimes have unrealistic expectations. Because they have often not been exposed to the realities of college level competition, they believe, not unreasonably, that they can compete for the top colleges. Given the SAT scores of Bottom of the Pyramid populations, that is often unrealistic.
And then there are the "diamonds in the rough." These are sometimes the most problematic students - low or no attendance, behavior problems, dysfunctional disruptive behavior. Finding and "polishing" the "diamonds in the rough" can sometimes be the most satisfying of all.
The jobs of a College Bound Team with a Bottom of the Pyramid population
Set the clear expectation that EVERYONE should pursue post High School learning.
In September I had the experience of meeting with a group of students who were seniors at SCAA. Approximately half of the class was present at that particular meeting. I asked "How many students want to go to college?" Every hand went up. My impression is that this is a sea change from years ago. It seems that the idea of "going to college" has reached the mass market. While it is still important to build on this change, this part of the job should much easier than in years past.
Bring each student who is set to graduate into clear focus.
Given the time and space constraints this is the critical problem. In days that are already impossibly overcrowded it is very, very difficult to be able to focus on an individual student and the nuances of their particular situation.
Ensure that students have made conscious choices
Adolescents have very full and complicated lives. Their ability to focus and act strategically might be at the heart of what they need to learn. Choosing a college is in some ways a precious "teachable moment." To the extent that adults can help students make that a learning experience, college bound can be an integral part of the learning process.
How to get from here to there
Use web tools to GET and GIVE information.
Leverage access to computers (usually in computer classes) to engage the students with web tools.
Use precious face to face time to demonstrate caring to the students, get the nuances, discover the surprises.
Use both web tools + face time to carve out the time to think.
Only thinking will allow the invention of more successful interventions that get the job done.
Use communication tools strategically
Online surveys to GET information.
After the admin asked the computer teacher to have her students go online to fill out a survey, the information from 60 students was received, stored, and accessible in minutes. This used about 10-15 minutes of class time. A link to the survey was posted on the school website. As of this writing, the information has been gathered for over 100 students. The enabling behavior is admin buy in. The rest is relatively straight forward.
The expectation is that if computer teachers were asked to get their students to answer surveys as the first activity of their class sessions, this could be scaled without undue disruption, extra personnel or using precious face time.
It took about 3 iterations to modify the survey. It is still a work in process and will probably have to be customized somewhat for each school. To see the survey v.3 11.26.07 click here.
Online surveys to GIVE information and stimulate thinking
If one aim is to make sure each student has a "safe" school, a survey can engage a student to think about this themselves. The Socratic method was to ask questions and note when the answers were not forthcoming. A survey can be used to ask questions and make accessible the data of when answers are not forthcoming. This might have use in creating and leveraging other "teachable moments." To see how this plays out in "choosing a safe school", click here. Note, the real value will only be realized when adults intervene to evaluate and guide decision making.
Use PubCenter.Basecamp to bring each student into clear focus.
Using a functionality built on basecamp, it is possible to gather the surveys and other behavior based information and make them accessible when a face time meeting occurs. This supplies the information needed to make a face time encounter richer and more productive. As a by product, it also makes face time meetings much shorter. In this context, I am calling the organizing functionality, Chelsea Pub Center. Unfortunately, at this date, the site contains private information so I cannot post a link here.
Carve out the time to think
This site is only one of a number of experiments in inventing a practical time and space to think. This may be the most difficult task of all. Legacy 20th century formal education communication ecologies were not designed to incent thinking. They were designed to train a 20th century workforce. They did their jobs reasonably well. But now in the 21st century, the situation has changed. Some useful tools are now readily accessible. Each local situation will need a local solution that meets the needs of the teachers and administration in that situation.
The uses of face time
Web tools, surveys, and project management sites deliver their value when they make face time meetings more productive. People's lives change in conversation with other people who are respected and respectful. That is the challenge and magic of teaching. All the rest is overhead. Since I am not a teacher on the ground, the best uses of face time has to be a collaborative decision by the teachers involved.
But based on Communication Ecology theory, the most important use of face time might be to carefully and respectfully listen to the students. In the best of circumstances - easy access to web tools - what is observed can be translated into insights that are then accessible to other adults who might interact with the same student in a different context. In this way information can be turned into useful knowledge about each student. It can also turn into a common body of knowledge that can be used to continually improve interventions that work.
At the admin level, here are some possibie to do's:
1.Organizing trips to local "safe" schools. Students should feel good about their choices, not that they merely went to wherever they could get in.
2. Helping the better students by making them visible to unique opportunities and sources of scholarship money. eg Portfolios to Art Schools.
3. Finding and nurturing the "diamonds in the rough" to help overcome the obstacles they face.
4. Gathering new insights about all students. Especially useful are insights that identify not obvious obstacles they are facing. If the information is accessible to others, help can be focused on helping the students overcome them.
Rationale for Possible Next Steps
Given the necessity of not only getting them in, but preparing them correctly might it make sense to designate the 2nd semester of the senior year as a College Prep or Life Prep curriculum.
1. Working to ensure that they pass or not pass graduation for the majority will increase measured results, but is that the best way to spend time for these students?
2. A focused program on what they will be doing after graduation could reap outsized benefits as this will be the time of major stress and branch in their life chances. For those students for whom the educational has not worked, maybe it would make sense now to prepare them for whatever is going to come next for them.
3. For the many students who will be attending Community Colleges, the value of investing time and resources to concentrate directly on the problems they are going to face in September will bring a much greater pay off than struggling with students to meet goals they have already rejected.
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