Clayton County students take to the streets to learn about helping their communities

When it comes to making an education practical, kids learn best in a number of ways from being fed properly and feeling safe. In this story from the AJC's H.M. Cauley, students in a county where safety is an issue, students are taking to the streets to show how to keep their neighborhoods safe. Everyone needs to play a part and this is something all communities can learn and grow from.

MAKING THE GRADE SCHOOL SUCCESS STORIES

Students take their studies to streets

Clayton students cover neighborhood to offer residents safety tips.

By H.M. Cauley For the AJC

   Kenny Glisch may be a freshman at Drew High in Riverdale, but he’s already thinking about the future. The 14-year-old is getting a head-start on exploring a career in law and justice through the Clayton County system’s Career, Technology and Agricultural Education initiative.    “This program spoke to me the most since my dad was a cop for 25 years,” said Glisch. “It’s one of the few classes where you can go right into the field out of high school while working on a post-secondary education.”    Clayton’s CTAE program offers 23 courses in topics ranging from culinary arts and carpentry to financial services and technology. Glish’s law enforcement class is part of a cluster that gives students insight into what it’s like to be a security or police officer.    “The idea is to prepare students for a skill or train them so they can continue their education at a 2- or 4-year college or university,” said Eboni Chillis, the CTAE coordinator for the school system. “Or they can obtain an entry-level position in the field of their choice. And they can take different programs at our nine high schools and open campus.”    The law and justice area is popular due to what Chillis dubs “the ‘CSI’ effect.”    “Students are so interested in ‘CSI’ that they believe the field is as fun and exciting as it is on television,” she said. “This program gives them the opportunity to delve into the curriculum and study the skills needed for public safety, corrections and security fields. It helps them visualize what they might do in a particular field.”    One of the important elements of the CTAE program is its hands-on approach. Through internships and projects with local business and organizations, they get to see the subject as it operates in the real world.    Glisch and about 20 fellow students from Drew, Riverdale and Forest Park high schools got a taste of community policing on De. 11 when they took part in Shining Light, an event organized by the school system.    In the early evening, students and members of the Clayton Neighborhood Revitalization Coalition, the school district, Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity and the county police department walked the streets of the Normandy neighborhood in College Park. They talked with residents about safety issues, particularly those that arise around the holiday season.    Toting flashlights donated by Lowe’s and led by police cruisers with lights flashing, the teens passed out flyers offering tips on crime prevention that they had designed themselves.    “I loved it,” said Glisch. “At first, when people saw cop cars with lights on coming through the neighborhood, I think they were wary. But as they came out to see what was happening, we told them it was a safety-related event, and we talked about security measures, like leaving lights on and not posting your whereabouts on social media. I think they really appreciated what we were doing.”    The event also fulfilled research and reporting requirements students must meet for the class. And it gave neighborhood residents a chance to interact positively with students who might be the next generation of uniformed officers.

Drew High School freshman Kenny Glisch (left center) and fellow law and justice students on Dec. 11 fanned out through a College Park neighborhood offering seasonal safety tips. CONTRIBUTED

It's a Kahoot If your using Kahoot.it

   When I first heard about Kahoot.it at the Fulton County Schools teacher induction program, I had no idea what to think. But using a kid/adult friendly program where you use technology whether it be phone, I-Pad or computer could show students that learning is fun. For educators you know you cannot keep phones out of the classroom and if you work for an employer that encourages technology and using cell phones, this is a great way to go. So what is it? Its a free program where teachers create questions on quizzes, surveys or start conversations and students simply answer them. The rest is really a blast.

Great reasons to use it.

1. Students go nuts! Watching students go crazy in a positive way when learning is a tremendous teaching tool. Please set ground rules. Everyone needs to be seated and not walking around the class.I stop the game if students violate this unless they cannot read a question which is pretty rare.

2. You can use data depending on the device. These days, its all about the data. Data is somewhat reliable when every student has their own device and uses what they know and answers questions the quickest becomes the new leader. Teachers can look at data afterward to drive instruction. They key is making sure students do not share answers unless you want them to in a group setting. You can see where you need to reteach or where student mastery has occurred.

3. Students can create questions- When a student takes ownership and they see their name next to a question being asked. Have students research a question from material based on the standards and you have students teaching students.
4. Teachers create questions- It's a big duh but use questions from your pre and post tests. Its a great ticket in or out the door.
5. Competitive atmosphere- Students love to compete and they realize time is just as important as mastery in order to win.

1. Downsides- There are a few. Data works best when students have their own device. Believe it or not, not all students will have a cell phone in middle and even high school. Elementary teachers will certainly have to use laptops or I-Pads or even the media center.

2. Use it no more than once per week. After that, you are taking a fun activity and taking the edge off of something fun. We always want our students looking forward to doing whatever we do.
Here is the link to the free signup
https://getkahoot.com/

Crowdfunding is a great way to get classroom projects paid for

Scott: These Chicago fifth graders are getting a hands-on lesson in engineering by launching catapults.

Amani Abuhabsah is their teacher and says the catapults kits weren't purchased by the school system. And she couldn’t afford the materials on her own. But she got them as a gift through a site called DonorsChoose.org, where teachers post requests for classroom materials they need and anyone can help cover the cost.

Basically like crowdfunding, which is a new online trend in charity. 

Charles Best started Donors Choose fourteen years ago when he began teaching.

Charles: My colleagues and I would spend a lot of our own money on copy, paper, and pencils. And we just figured there were people out there who would want to help teachers like us if they could see exactly where their money was going.

Scott: Today more than half of all public schools in America have at least one teacher who has created a project on Donors Choose. And in response, 1.5 million people have given more than 250 million dollars.

Charles: People not only want to support public schools, but people warm to this idea of being a philanthropist, even though they might have only have five dollars to spare.

Scott: Best hopes Donors Choose will help change policies around school funding by shedding light on the needs of teachers.

Charles: We think that there's nothing like sunlight to mobilize and energize citizens to demand change of their elected officials.

Scott: To do that, Donors Choose is making all of their information public. Now anyone can see what teacher requests come from which schools.

Charles: If we can show the world that there are students in all sorts of communities who don't have the material they need for a great education, that’s going to be the first major step to doing something about it.

Scott: Scott Evans, Channel One News.

Maggie: After a project gets fulfilled on Donor's Choose, the class writes the donors thank you notes telling them all about their project. That way people can actually hear about all the good that comes from their donation. Pretty cool right?

Alright guys, that's going to do it for us. I am Maggie Rulli and we cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

Georgia School Rankings- How did your school do?

Georgia School Rankings- How did your school do

http://www.myajc.com/news/local-education/metro-atlanta-ccrpi-scores-2014/#cf38958d.3899403.735583



 The state's report card grades on a scale of 0 to 110. The overall score is made up of four components: Achievement points are based on results of CRCT tests in grades 3-8 and end-of-course tests in grades 9-12, readiness for the next academic level, and graduation rates. Schools can earn up to 60 points. Progress points are based on students' academic growth on state tests. Worth up to 25 points. Achievement gap points are awarded to schools for closing achievement gaps. Worth up to 15 points. Challenge points are awarded to schools with significant number of economically disadvantaged students, English learners and students with disabilities meeting expectations, or if they exceed the state targets in college-ready programs. Worth up to 10 extra points.  

One teacher helps his students tweet their way to a Revolution

The Revolution Will Be Tweeted

      It is nice when students can have their voice be heard through a Twitter account. For Xian Barrett and his middle school students, they had enough time to share their feelings through a classroom account of the historical implications ranging from Emmitt Till to Eric Garner. For students that do not feel like they have a voice, using a teachers twitter account where he posts the account and they link to other like minded sites gives them a voice. In the article posted by Teaching Tolerance, Barrett uses classroom conversations (I do not know if it is standards based)and students give personal accounts of their experiences with police.

Submitted by Teaching Tolerance Staff on December 11, 2014"There are some things that we can never change it seems...#racism #EricGarner #TrayvonMartin #EmmettTill #RekiaBoyd #Ferguson "-DS 8th
"This makes youth of color feel threatened in our own communities because even eye contact w/an officer could mean death #EricGarner"-TG 8th
"I don't feel anything. It's a misfortune he died, but things like this happen all the time, which is pretty sad to say. #EricGarner"-MG 7th
These are just a few tweets from seventh- and eighth-graders who were doing more than expressing their views on the killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others: They were completing a classroom assignment.
Last week, Chicago middle school teacher Xian Barrett had his students insert their voices into conversations about these cases by creating a special activity: After reviewing and discussing the details of each case in class, tweet about them. He then shared these tweets on his own Twitter feed (while maintaining students’ anonymity).
Barrett recently shared with Teaching Tolerance his inspiration for the project and the most meaningful takeaways for him and his students.
What inspired you to document your students’ thoughts on #Ferguson and #EricGarner, and why through Twitter? 
Personally, what drives me on the violence issue is that I’ve had to bury too many students. It’s seven now from my classes, but there have been a lot more young people lost from the communities I’ve taught in. That’s the worst thing that can happen to a teacher. They should be putting us in the ground 40 years from now, not vice versa.
But that’s not all. When I did peace circles with my high school students, they would describe being stopped by police 10, 15, 20 times over three-month periods. At the same time, they were terrified of the violence in the neighborhood. I mean, I just heard shots down the block as I’m typing this. …
… I’m angry like much of America about the #EricGarner and #MikeBrown cases, but this has been happening forever. It’s part of the same culture that had police working with white supremacist groups to lynch and terrorize people of color for most of our nation’s history. I teach that history, and now that mainstream America is finally discussing these issues more, I want my students to be part of that discussion. How can we hope to address deep institutional criminalization of black and brown youth if we don’t respect them to lead these discussions?
Barrett said, "I want to make sure [my students] are thinking deeply and using their voices. I think long-form writing is still important—we will do several longer papers this year—but I want them to get used to using platforms for power, not just to get a grade for a class."
What was the classroom context for this project? Was it an assignment?
Yes, we studied the background details. It’s important to acknowledge the nuances and the differing perspectives.
In all this work, I try to refrain from sharing my perspective until after they share theirs. In this latest project, some of the students (as you can see in the tweets, it was just a couple) were very sympathetic to the officers. But most were not—as has been my experience in the three settings I’ve taught at in Chicago. Even those with relatives in law enforcement tended to focus on the need for all police to act ethically and de-escalate violence so their colleagues could be safer rather than justifying deadly force.
After reviewing the facts (and the details, like how a grand jury works, etc.), they spoke in groups and then individually wrote their tweets.
How do you teach about Twitter?
It is definitely a teaching tool. I think most of the youth can see that an essay they write gets seen by one or maybe 30 people if you do peer sharing, but a tweet can be seen by thousands. That motivates them. We talk about what makes a good tweet in the same way we discuss what a good persuasive essay looks like. We have looked at other tweets on the hashtags where organizers are using them to rally people and run on-the-ground logistics. But it’s still something we are developing. We’ll see where they want to take it. 
As of now, I do a lot of modeling. As you can see, only a few of my students got parental permission and tweeted their own tweets [@OldSpiceManny, @SebasOrtiz17 and @Tiristaran]. [T]he logistics are difficult—especially with the younger voices.
What were your goals for this activity? What were you hoping the result(s) would be?
I want them to be able to analyze difficult situations and have big takeaways. The youth who linked Emmett Till to Michael Brown or Eric Garner in a short thoughtful sentence are already making the deep connections that transform the study of history from a trivial pursuit to work that transforms the present and future.

That said, there’s going to be a wide spectrum, but I saw growth in all of the students, including those with big obstacles in their normal schooling. They in particular engaged far beyond my expectations. I think it’s worth remembering that, in addition to race, the students with disabilities are far more likely to run into trouble with the police, so I’m very hopeful that they’ll find this work useful.
What have you learned from this experience, as a teacher?
There’s a weird dynamic these days where everyone talks about “having high standards” and what they mean is that you attack the young people if they don’t conform to very narrowly defined standards. I find it to be particularly damaging to youth of color—many of whom aren’t likely to want to conform to standards defined by affluent white communities [and pushed] onto them. I learned that if you break down those high expectations from “Hit this test score” to “Dream some stuff that you are passionate about and make it real,” they do a lot better.
I said that losing a student to violence is the worst thing that can happen to a teacher and it’s true; it’s absolutely awful.
That said, I think probably the worst thing that a teacher can do is to be complicit with the forces hurting and killing our students. I can’t say that I am able to avoid that entirely—we are all complicit in some way—but through projects like this one, I firmly believe that my students teach me to support them better in their struggles for justice in this unjust society.
Editor's note: For more resources on similar topics, visit our Web package Teaching About Ferguson: Race and Racism in the United States.

How can schols help students and families do better with digital citizenship?

Schools must have a digital citizenship policy. It is far more complex than what everyone could possibly imagine. What one parent wants, another could never allow their child to follow. What about the apathetic or confused parent. Some parents could care less what their kids do or look at and most parents have no idea what a digital citizenship policy is beyond knowing a school has one. The following is from an article by Alissa Sklar from Teaching Tolerance Magazine.


Digital Community
by Alissa Sklar
Implementing a BYOD policy is the perfect opportunity to emphasize digital citizenship as part of your school’s culture.
Set up clear guidelines. Schools need to inform students and families about when devices can be used, who is responsible for damage and what the consequences will be if devices are misused.
Talk about empathy and community. Defining your school’s expectations of digital citizenship goes a long way towards avoiding problems. Integrate concepts of safety, rights and respect for self and others—online and elsewhere—into classroom activities and homework. Check out this example of proactive, pro-technology guidelines from the Trafalgar School for Girls in Montreal, Quebec.
Teach about privacy controls. It can be tempting to trade privacy for high follower counts on Instagram, Tumblr or Twitter, but this leaves students open to cyberbullying, trolling, identity theft and the possibility that their digital footprints can come back to haunt them. Consider asking students to research privacy settings as part of an assignment.
Emphasize that passwords are personal. Sharing passwords is too often viewed as a sign of trust in a relationship or friendship, but true friends would never ask you to divulge this information and make yourself vulnerable.

What happens when Johnny does not bring his own cell phone to class?

I think its fair to say that not all schools are equal and when it comes to technology, this is especially so. One school has hardwired computers but a poor WIFI system or smart boards only go to math classes and the rest of the classes do not have that luxury. In my own classroom, we embrace technology and use it every day. Saying that, I have two computers for class exploration and I often ask students to bring their phones for a variety of activities. These include Socratic, Kahoot.it and dictionary.com. But what happens when Johnny or Jane do not have a phone? Do they have to sit out the activity or do a paper and pencil activity because the district either cannot offer an I-Pad or a parent cannot afford or by principle allow their child to bring a device to school. In the article from Teaching Tolerance Magazine, they look at this issue and I bring you a portion of it with some solutions to this problem.

BYOD? [Bring Your Own Device]

Number 48: Fall 2014

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project recently asked over 1,600 experts what they thought the future of the Internet would look like. Respondents replied that the Internet would essentially become the equivalent of electricity—something so integral to our daily lives that it is practically invisible.
Compelled by a similar vision of the future and the increasingly technology-driven nature of our society, more and more U.S. schools are adopting “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies, encouraging students to bring personal computers, tablets, mobile phones and other Internet-compatible devices to class to serve as learning aids. According to the 2014 Digital School Districts Survey, conducted by the Center for Digital Education and the National School Boards Association, the percentage of schools using BYOD has jumped from 34 to 56 in just the last year.
So why BYOD instead of “one-to-one,” a system in which schools provide one device per student?
“Fundamentally, it’s school finance,” says Julie Evans, chief executive officer of Project Tomorrow, a California nonprofit that promotes innovation in math, science and technology education. “Administrators have bought into the idea that having a personalized computing device in the hands of every student is a good idea. But they have not been able to figure out how to pay for that on an ongoing and sustainable basis. In many cases—in most cases—they have backed into BYOD as a solution to that problem.”

There are several things that can be done to help those that do not have the means to use technology in the classroom. 

1. Ask students to share technology such as a laptop or cell phone. If you are playing an online game, put them on a team and have them share. You have cooperative learning in a nutshell. 

2. Check out a laptop/I-PAD cart. If your school has one, plan ahead and have clear goals for students on policy, sharing and so forth. 

3. Have your technology person install activote software on your computer so all students can compare. 

I like using the data to drive instruction. Using electronic devices where all students can be heard helps drive instruction and students can be retaught by class, group or individually. 

I suggest districts/counties/principals and teachers apply for grants. Best Buy has a major grant for technology but that is geared for teachers that write outstanding grants. Mr. Akers 







 To read the rest of the article from Teaching Tolerance, click here. 
http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-48-fall-2014/byod