NYC Family Services Coordinator Maryanne Schretzman champions CUNY ASAP (Accelerated Study in Associate Programs) as one of the innovative programs that boost the educational outcomes of foster care youth by offering them “wraparound services.” Since its inception in the Fall of 2007, CUNY ASAP has already proven its effectiveness by boasting a 54.9% graduation rate among its entering cohort of 1,132 students. The strength of that number is best appreciated against the graduation rate of Read more…
A handful of universities including Harvard, Yale, and the University of Chicago approached the Education Advisory Board with these three questions regarding services provided to foster youth at different colleges and universities:
How are key support services for foster youth structured?
What resources are available to help foster youth transition to life at the university (e.g., dedicated advisor, support group, etc.)
How do other universities assist foster youth in facing specific challenges including applying for financial aid, buying textbooks and other peripherals, and finding a place to live during semester breaks?
The clients requested data from large public universities, but the board also contacted administrators at a community college in California, given the state’s system-wide commitment to foster youth in their community colleges, and also at Seattle University, which has the most comprehensive program nationwide for its attention to foster youth.
One of the teens on the youth panel yesterday mentioned his involvement in the SIMBA Brotherhood as what enabled him to begin having hope in his future and start caring about his education once more. I’ve been researching different youth programs to see what’s available and to whom and also to learn about different programming strategies and goals. What I like about SIMBA is its holistic approach: its program brings together common pragmatic concerns (vocational Read more…
Yesterday I attended the McKinney-Vento training workshop run by NYS-TEACHS (New York State Technical and Education Assistance Center for Homeless Students), which is funded by the NYSED and housed at Advocates for Children of New York. The training sessions are geared primarily toward educators and service providers who might not be aware of the educational rights of children in temporary housing (that is, children who do not live in a dwelling that is fixed, regular, Read more…
I’d been toying with the idea of building a program around fairy tales and their retellings. There must be something in the air because this fall NBC began airing Grimm shortly after ABC launched Once Upon a Time. I’m taking the recent trailer releases of two (of the three?) upcoming Snow White movies as a nudge in that direction. Here is dramatic and action-packed Snow White and the Huntsman: And here is the comic Mirror Read more…
At NYU there is an expository writing course called Writing the Essay, which all university undergraduates must take in their first year. I’ve listened to many an undergrad complain about the course, and not coincidentally, I can’t think of a single TA in my acquaintance who hasn’t had to reteach these students the basic skills of writing an essay: how to open an essay; what a thesis sentence is and how to formulate one; how to introduce quotations and other sorts of evidence in body paragraphs; how to conclude an essay, etc.. With an already tight semester, there is no way to go about teaching all this without making students feel like they are going through writing boot camp.
So what goes wrong during the semester when students are supposedly learning how to “write the essay”? (more…)
Even as it is told from the particular perspective of a Chinese-American boy, Gene Yang’s graphic novel has been lauded by readers and critics alike as a unique piece of young adult fiction that speaks to the universal teen problem of wanting to change something about yourself in order to “fit in.” I picked up the book last month with very high hopes but was left distinctly irritated by the time I got to the end of the work. I still can’t decide, however, whether and how I want to teach it.
To be sure, my discomfort with American Born Chinese is not uncommon. In an interview with Kartika Review, the author himself cites the Christian subtext of the plot as “the number two most controversial part” of the book (the first being the outrageous character Chin-Kee, who is an old Hollywood caricature come to life).
Credit: Acephalous
If we are honest with ourselves, the image is as funny as it is offensive, and I think that blogger and teacher Scott Eric Kaufman is right to warn educators that students may be very reluctant to dig into the taboo humor of the character because to do so would require confronting their own intimacy with the stereotype. But I also venture that by virtue of his exaggerations, Chin-Kee demands comment and can thus facilitate a provocative discussion on race.
What troubles me more than Chin-Kee is the racial subtext that is a bit more insidious, and which is directly related to the Christian subtext. To be clear, I don’t have a problem with the fact that there is a Christian subtext, but with how it informs the message on race/ethnicity. (more…)
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of coming of age narratives—mostly from Coming of Age in the 21st Century, an anthology I would recommend to anyone interested in the topic. One story that really stands out for me is “The Shawl” by Louise Erdrich (you can download a pdf of it here). I’m definitely including it in the Dealing with Parents and the Past workshop within my Coming of Age program and I’ll probably teach it in the Critical Approaches to the ‘Family’ program that I’m developing. What really struck me about the story was how the narrator (and the reader does not immediately know that he is also the protagonist) manages to turn a traumatic family story—one that carries the tremendous weight of myth—into a narrative of heroic martyrdom. In the process, the protagonist also succeeds in redefining his relationship to his abusive, alcoholic father, who is all but destroyed by that past. (more…)
In this economy millions of Americans would be grateful to be employed, but there are few people who could really say that it is their job that gets them out of bed every morning. True, we all know people with successful careers, but the happiest of all are those who find their work truly fulfilling. These are the people who have found their calling.
Some might argue that finding your calling is something for the lucky few who are either blessed by circumstance or extraordinarily talented, but I firmly believe that every young person has something inside him or her that is waiting to be tapped. We do not have to be veritable geniuses to give something valuable to the world. By virtue of being unique individuals, we all have special gifts or particular interests that can be transformed into fulfilling work. This may be a remunerated job, unpaid service in the community, or the tremendous task of raising kids. Short of saying that “anything is possible” (I loathe that sort of self-help babble), I do think that every young person should dream big. They may not immediately have all the resources they need, but they have time on their side. With a little systematic work, everyone can at least determine what he or she is called to do in life.
Below is an exercise I’ve designed for participants to work on in my Finding Your Calling workshop, which is also within my Coming of Age program. In the context of a mentoring workshop, I think it would be great if mentors worked with their protégés (“mentees” in mentoring parlance) in answering these questions. (more…)
Right now I’m listening to Tina Fey hosting “The Hidden World of Girls” on WNYC. (Both hours are podcasted here!) One of the coming of age rituals described by the callers is an old American Indian (Sioux) rite of passage that was recently revived in the 1990s. The ceremony requires thirteen-year old girls to set up their own individual teepees, be hand-fed by their mothers for four days, and listen to their elders’ advice on Read more…
