HOW TO CREATE SAFE, SUPPORTIVE, AND TRAUMA-RESPONSIVE SCHOOLS

On February 14, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, located in Parkland, Florida, experienced one of the deadliest days of school violence ever recorded in the United States. A lone gunman entered the school and went on a rampage that took the lives of 17 people, with 17 more people injured because of gunshot wounds.

After the massacre, pundits scurried to the front of cameras to offer the same tired solutions for a problem that has morphed into a national crisis.

#Guns.

Pharmaceutical drugs.

Law enforcement negligence.

The list of whom and what to blame for the rapidly increasing number of school violence events neglects to answer one question: How to create safe, supportive, and trauma-responsive schools.

The Numbers Do Not Lie
Between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014, a combination of 48 students, educators, and visitors lost their lives on school property in the United States. The 48 deaths included 28 homicides, 20 suicides, one death caused by legal intervention, and one death not determined by law enforcement. About two-thirds of public schools reported at least one violent incident during the 2013-14 school year.
The Center for Disease Control released a report stating almost 10% of students participated in a physical fight during the school year. Six percent of students fail to attend school because of what they perceived to be an unsafe learning environment.

It is not just about violence. Students also face the growing menace called bullying. With social media sites presenting the convenient opportunity for bullies to unleash intimidation, we should not be surprised that incidents of bullying have increased in the United States public education system. During the 2015-16 school year, nearly 15% of fourth graders and seven percent of eighth graders reported being victims of bullying at least one time over the span of 30 days.

The question is since we all can agree that violence and intimidation exist in the United States public school system, but what are we going to do to stop the violence and intimidation?

Supportive Strategies to Keep Students and #Educators Safe
Academics wring their hands, as well as toss and turn at night trying to come up with the most effective solutions for creating supportive learning environments. A seminal book released in 2009 still has relevance today. Five co-authors argue for a few common sense approaches to creating supportive learning environments.

Perhaps the most critical strategy involves connecting with parents and community leaders to foster a more open and welcoming learning environment. Parents take the lead at home by extending the classroom learning environment, and community leaders develop programs that encourage children and adolescents to learn year round. Another recommendation is to sustain strong instructional that includes more collaboration among students. The book goes on to emphasize the importance of cohesive school leadership that concentrates more on teaching and less on disciplining students who make mistakes.

#Trauma Response Must Improve
We cannot expect all the sound school safety first practices to expunge school violence and intimidation. However, we can do a better job of responding to the trauma caused by life-changing events that occur in our public schools.

Trauma represents an event or several events when students and educators experience physical and emotional harm that lingers for years. Research indicates the majority of students in the American public education system have gone through at least one traumatic event. More than 60% of students experience a traumatic event at school by the time they turn 16 years old. About two-thirds of students have witnessed or been a victim of violence, with more than half of the victims experiencing more than one violent incident.

The Consequences of Trauma
Students who go through a traumatic event develop learning disabilities, such as having problems staying focused or forgetting important parts of classroom lectures. Victimized students also find it hard to maintain stable social relationships with both peers and educators. The consequences of trauma include lower standardized test scores and a higher incidence of suspensions and expulsions.

Effective Trauma Response Matters
Schools that implement effective trauma response programs ensure students and educators build caring relationships, as well as pay close attention to their physical and emotional health. Students thrive in the classroom and educators deliver a compelling curriculum that helps students grow personally and academically. Trauma responsive schools create a comprehensive strategy that starts with working with local law enforcement to create a game plan for how to respond to traumatic events. The response can include knowing where to go during a traumatic event and how to seek counseling after a traumatic event is over.

Here are some other ways to improve trauma response in our nation’s public schools:
·     Create an educational program that discusses the meaning of trauma
·     Emphasize that feeling vulnerable after a traumatic event is not a weakness
·     Educate parents about how trauma negatively influences the learning process
·     Promote safe learning environments in classrooms, hallways, and playgrounds
·     Identify barriers to healing after a traumatic event
·     Train educators to detect student mood changes
·     Encourage confidential discussions between students and school mental health professionals
·     Make sure an emotional support staff is always there for students and educators

The national debate about how to prevent and handle #school-based trauma often misses the point. Instead of debating whether to arm teachers or build schools that resemble prisons, the discussion about school #safety should be more about finding ways to offer support to the people who need it the most.

How Can Educators Create an Effective Connected Classroom?

A connected classroom is a smart-learning environment that is open to the outside world. With this approach, students get to learn from real-life situations and connect with other learners across the globe. With the widespread use of internet and web 2.0 technologies, creating connected classrooms has become much easier. Before we look at the web tools that you can use to open the classroom doors to a global audience, let us look at some of the academic advantages of adopting such an approach.

Connected classrooms can help students:

• Practice and learn a foreign language with native speakers of the tongue
• Discuss problems with other learners from far off locations
• Invite experts in a particular field to the virtual classroom and learn from them
• Expose themselves to other cultures and develop a more holistic global awareness
• Set up virtual trips to places of interest

Skype and Google Hangout are great tools to create a connected classroom. They stand out for a number of reasons:

• They are completely free to uset is easy to set them up and you do not need any in-depth technical knowledge to operate them
• They are web-based and don’t require software installation
• You can do both video and text chat on them 
• They offer group calling services
• Hangout videos and Skype calls can be recorded and shared with anybody
  Let us take a look at a practical way in which we can use Google Hangout and Skype to create a connected classroom

The Mystery Hangout/Skype

A Mystery Hangout/Skype is an educational classroom game where students from different parts of the country get to meet each other on Skype or through Hangout video and get to ask each other questions about each other's locations. The aim of this game is to help the students guess the location of their peers’ class. In the process, they get to practice a number of academic skills like web searching, speaking, note taking, writing and a lot more.

This activity is suitable for children of any age group and can also be used to teach subjects like geography, history, mathematics, languages and science.  There are various ways in which you can go about selecting the class to partner with. For instance, you can use the Hashtag #mysteryskype or go to this page to find out more about the different classes that are featured there. If you want to organize a Mystery hangout for your class, you can check Google Plus’ Mystery hangout Community. If you find a class that you want to connect with, get in touch with its teacher and set up a meeting. But before you get started with the Mystery Hangout/Skype class, make sure that your students are adequately prepared. Here are a few handy tips to get them ready for their first connected learning experience:

• Make sure that your students fact check the information that they are going to provide in their answers. They can use the internet to look up information on their geographical location, the population of the city they live in, the languages they speak, the historical monuments, their city’s economic mainstay and more. 

• If you want to connect with classes that are in a different time zone, you need to know the time differences between both the locations. You can use the following tools to overcome the problem:

• Online conversion 
• Meeting planner 
• World clock 

If you want your students to make the most of the time they spend connecting with their guest class, make sure that you assign each one of them a specific task to carry out. Some of the roles include – greeters (the students who will greet the guests when they connect), the questioner (students who pose the questions), note takers (students who are entrusted with taking detailed notes) and photographers (students who are entrusted with taking pictures during the call). If you want a more detailed web resource with a list of tasks that you can assign to your students, check out this page.

Mental Health in Urban Schools

Mental Health in Urban Schools

When it comes to the issue of mental health, urban schools have a lot of untapped strengths and assets which reside within the students and their families, the school staff and the community resources. Urban schools are ripe for exploration as we understand the importance of promoting a healthy emotional development and also because of the critical issues faced by students during the school year. Some of the students misbehave, some go through physical or sexual abuse, some of them are emotionally upset and others have difficulty getting along with their peers or adjusting to the school requirements. The central question behind any mental health approach should be – How can the schools engage these challenges?

What is it all about?

A lot of people think “mental illness” when they hear the term “mental health”. Others think it is all about counseling and therapy. But that isn’t the whole picture. Mental health is also about:

·      Instituting programs to promote emotional-social development, preventing the occurrence of psychological problems and enhancing the protective buffers and resiliency of students.

·      Providing services and programs to intervene as soon as behavior, learning and emotional problems are detected.

·      Supporting and nourishing the mental health of school staff and families.

·      Engaging in capacity building so that school staff can address the barriers encountered in learning.

·      Addressing the systemic issues which affect mental health, like high stakes testing and practices which lead to bullying, alienation and disengagement from any form of classroom learning.

·      Drawing on the empirical evidence to develop a multifaceted, cohesive and comprehensive continuum of community-school interventions to address the barriers to learning and promote a more holistic development.

What does the urban school system currently provide?

Most of the urban schools have some programs in place to address mental health and psychosocial concerns, like school adjustment, problems with attendance, dropouts, sexual and physical abuse, substance abuse, emotional upset, relationship difficulties, violence and delinquency. Some of them are funded by the schools themselves while others are a result of links with youth development agencies and community service. Some of the programs are district-wide while others are linked to specific schools. The intervention might be offered to all the students or those recognized as “at risk”. The recommended activities might be implemented in either regular or special-ed classrooms or even as a pull out program. They are designed either for an entire class, individuals or groups.

The personnel who assist with mental health concerns include “support services” or “pupil services” specialists, like counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers as well as a number of paraprofessionals. Most of them focus on the student as a problem or as having a problem.

The students and the staff who work in schools are a diverse bunch, They vary in gender, ethnicity, race, national origin, migration and refugee status and experiences, spirituality, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, language, communication modality, group identity, levels of assimilation/acculturation, developmental stages, workplace culture, lifestyle and family, and popular culture.

Interventions must consider the significant group and individual differences. The personnel must be competent enough to deal with diversity in their daily practice. Despite the range of activities, few schools have actually come close to having the adequate resources to deal with the complex mental health and psychosocial problems through the traditional responses.

What are the emerging trends?

The central problem is that activities that are related to mental health and psychosocial concerns are not given a high priority in schools. They gain visibility in the case of an event, like a student suicide, shooting on campus or an increase in the bullying of students. The efforts that are undertaken are developed in a piecemeal, ad hoc, and marginalized way. This has led to redundancy, fragmented approaches, and inadequate results.

Modern approaches focus on much more than the one-on-one interaction of the older models. It advocates a more comprehensive approach that strengthens the families, schools, students and the neighborhoods in ways that can maximize caring, learning and well-being. We need to fully integrate an agenda for mental health into the urban school framework.

Although one-on-one interactions with troubled students are effective and must be appreciated for the amount of clinical work put in by the counselors and psychologists, we need to focus on building better bridges so that we avoid problems even before they occur. However, many people still believe that education must be the primary concern of schools and mental health is not their business.

How can schools use the natural opportunities to improve the mental health of their students?  

We can group the natural opportunities available at schools for countering mental health and psychosocial problems into two major categories:

1.     Daily opportunities – Schools are a vibrant and active social milieu. Students get to interact with many of their peers and adults during the day. All the school staff, especially the teachers, must be trained in ways to make use of the encounters and minimize transactions which work against positive growth. Are students being instructed in ways that strengthen the development of interpersonal skills? Is their understanding of themselves and others getting better? Is sharing and cooperative learning promoted? Is the climate supportive, safe and caring? Are the interpersonal conflicts suppressed when they happen, or are they used as learning opportunities? Is every student given a role to be a positive helper in the school and the community at large? How safe do the staff and students feel when they are at school? Having metrics to answer each of these questions will be the right way to go forward.

2.     Yearly patterns – The beginning of a school year is a period of hope. As time progresses, a number of stressors emerge, from increasingly difficult homework assignments, interpersonal conflicts, and grading and testing pressures. Holidays, sports, social events, grade promotions and graduations give rise to additional stressors with their own developmental experiences. Having monthly themes to reduce the stress would be a great way to go.

a.     September – Get off to a good start.

b.     October – Enable adjustment to the school.

c.     November – Respond to referrals in a way that can actually stem the tide.

d.     December – Re-engage the students and use their time off in a way that will pay off.

e.     January – A time for a new start for everybody.

f.      February – The mid-point of the year accompanied by conferences and report cards. It presents another challenging opportunity.

g.     March – Reduce the stress and prevent burnouts.

h.    April – Springtime can be a period of high risk for the students.

i.      May – This is the time to help families and students plan for a successful transition to a new school/grade.

j.      June – Summer can be a great time for the kids to get a taste of the world of adults and learn to be independent by getting some seasonal work.

k.    July – Use the down time to plan for better ways in which everyone can work together to provide a better learning support.

l.      August – Develop ways by which you can avoid burnouts.

How can schools provide a mentally healthy living environment to their students?

Schools should be more proactive in developing a positive atmosphere for their students and staff. Literature advocates:

·      Providing a caring, welcoming and a more hopeful atmosphere.

·      Social support mechanisms for the staff and students.

·      Offering an array of options so that students can pursue their goals.

·      Meaningful participation by both the staff and students in decision making.

·      Changing the infrastructure of the classroom from a bigger set into a number of smaller units that are organized to maximize the intrinsic motivation of students for learning.

·      Providing instruction and responding to the problems in a more personalized way.

·      Using a number of strategies for addressing the problems as soon as they arise.

·      An attractive and healthy physical environment which is conducive to teaching and learning.

Every school needs a welcoming induction and continued support for creating a more positive sense of community. It will facilitate student and staff adjustment and performance. The strategies must be school-wide and must enable the students, staff, and families to positively interact with each other and identify with the school and its goals. 

References:

1.     https://www.epa.gov/schools/implementing-coordinated-school-health-guidelines

2.     http://www.maine.gov/education/mainecshp/tools/advocacy/practices.doc

3.     http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec09/vol67/num04/Coordinated-School-Health@-Getting-It-All-Together.aspx

4.     http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15326985ep3304_1

5.     http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/teaching-and-learning/promoting-student-success-through-collaboration/

6.     http://www.ocde.us/PBIS/Documents/Articles/Addressing%20Barriers%20to%20Learning.pdf

7.     http://smhp.psych.ucla.edu/schoolsupport.htm

Why We Need To Move Towards Standards-Based Learning

As of last year, there were an estimated 50 million students in the United States who were attending public elementary and secondary schools. Within the next few years, these children will be having full time jobs and contributing towards the growth of the nation. It is no secret that good education has an effect on progress of a people, which is why it is important to ensure that education systems are constantly evolving. In this spirit, the grading system that is employed by majority of the schools in the USA is observed to give rise to many problems, and it will have to be changed if we want the children of the future to be competent.

The present scenario

The present system makes a student sit through a class for an entire year and allows progression to a higher grade once they prove their proficiency at the end of the year. This kind of a system assumes that students have gained expertise in their subjects before they are made to sit through more advanced classes. But empirical evidence shows that students can progress to higher grades even when they are not competent enough to grasp advanced concepts.

The grading system has, for many years, been the subject of criticism as many people become acutely aware of the effect it has on children. One of the primary issues is that the grading system focuses on achieving marks, instead of learning the concept thoroughly. The intrinsic motivation for students in such a system is to get good grades, and this forces them to take lesser risks in their learning process, instead of exploring topics that lie beyond their current skill set.

The very approach to learning is corrupted when the message given by an educational institution is “grades matter more than learning”. As the students study a book with the intention of memorizing facts, their quality of understanding the essence of the text is diminished, and this effect is magnified as the students progress through higher levels of the education system.

Why improvement would not really help

Many people are of the opinion that an improvement in the education system is a necessity, but they may not be very open to completely doing away with the grading system. Several schools around the country try to augment the grading system by introducing innovative policies, yet these methods do not stand the test of time. The reason that superficial improvements to the grading system do not work is because it is psychologically flawed.

Experts of pedagogy agree that the learning process inherently motivates students, not because they stand to gain good grades, but because the subject matter interests them. The grading system, instead of acknowledging this quality, forces a structure of rewards and punishments in the hopes of spurring young minds to work harder. Studies conducted by educational psychologists reveal that simply focusing on the assessment process can undermine the quality of learning, as the students monitor their performance instead of trying to grasp the nuances of the subject matter.

How to move towards standards-based learning

The process of change towards standards-based learning is arduous and it will require the combined efforts of school administrators and teachers, if a school hopes to use such a system in the long run. To make a gradual move away from the grading system, a school administrator needs to first have extensive discussions with teachers, parents and even students about the effects of the present system. The main rebuttal people have against changing the grading system is that it becomes nearly impossible to collect data about a student's performance. But there are far better methods of assessing mastery which involves gathering information about the capability of students.

Once a considerable number of people are in support of the idea of moving away from the grading system, a school can start to eliminate the traditional system for the youngest students, so that the system can be continued as they progress through their education. Instead of completely eliminating grades, an educational institution may choose to reduce the focus on academic success to show students that learning is more important that scoring well.

Teachers will have a major role to play in the efforts of an educational institution, as they will need to adapt to new methods of assessment. There will also be considerable resistance from parents and students alike, who will argue that excellence needs to be documented with data. When faced with such situations, remember that the goal of a school is not to grade students competitively, but to increase knowledge within each student. With persistence and skill, it is possible to eliminate the grading system and move towards a competency based learning system in the long term.

The Need of the Hour - To Educate Boys and Young Men of Color

A nation is formed by the contribution of every single one of its citizens. It grows, flourishes, progresses alongside its people. In the same measure, it fails to achieve its optimal development when a section of the citizenry is denied the ability to give their best to their homeland. In the U.S., where the fabric of society comprises of many hues and textures, it is indeed surprising, even shocking, that young men of color are yet to receive their due, their fair share of the resources that the country has to give. This is most evident in the skewed educational landscape we witness. The facts about young men of color that are commonly known are:

• Young men of color enrolled in America’s urban schools do not demonstrate the academic excellence that paves way for successful higher education or lucrative career

• A disproportionate number of young men of color have low attendance at school and high dropout rates when compared with their counterparts

The Big Picture that is often Hidden

However, the big picture that emerges when you start exploring why this situation exists is not quite as well known or well publicized:

• Due to a variety of historic, cultural, social reasons, the families of these young men have been kept out of the more upscale, prosperous neighborhood, thus limiting their ability to enroll at the best urban schools in the country.

• Studies reveal that young men of color are far more likely than their peers to attend schools where the quality of teaching is below par, with fewer experienced teachers available and accessible.

• These young men are also far more likely to attend schools where educational resources are heavily limited and restricted, thus restricting their ability to take initiative for their own education in the absence of high quality teaching. These resources include science labs, libraries, athletic programs and so on.

• The schools they attend may also typically have a dearth of qualified, experienced counselors meaning that these young men of color have no one to turn to for guidance and support in making the right career choices. This is especially a huge challenge for first generation school students who come from a family where no one else has had an opportunity to study.

• A host of factors, including these prevent these young men of color from graduating from school with the necessary preparation to take up higher education at a quality institution. This means that the cycle is repeated, restricting the student’s ability to hone his inherent skills into professional qualifications that will get him a job where his full potential is utilized.

Young men of color are denied the chance to give their best to America

The situation is a very unfortunate one because it is not only these young men of color who are at the losing end. It is, in fact, the country that is losing out and quite significantly. Unfortunately, this is one aspect that does not receive the attention it deserves. The reality is that no country can progress as well as it should unless every section of the population is given the opportunity to explore their own talents and skills to the maximum. No country can flourish unless every such section has access to resources that let them discover their inherent skills and develop them. And no country can optimally develop and succeed unless every such section is integrated into its workforce in areas where their skills can be leveraged to the maximum. 

In an ideal society, every single student is given equal educational opportunities, has access to teachers and learning resources to identify the ways in which they can excel in life. This is a first step that lets students achieve personal success and position themselves as an integral part of society. It also puts a full stop to the vicious cycle of poorly educated adults failing to recognize the need to get their children educated, thus fostering yet another generation of young men of color unable to contribute to society and nation.

Education is Key to Safeguarding the Nation’s Resources

Young men of color face several prejudices, most common among them being that they are aggressive and more likely to engage in criminal activities. The statistics that show the immense number of young men of color engaged in unlawful activities only add fuel to this fire. However, explore the facts with a closer look at the causative factors and a very different picture emerges. If we are able to equip these young men with the education they need to succeed in a constructive career, we can effectively channelize their energies in the right way. These students can become the men who stand first in our line of defense, who build the businesses that will take America to new heights, who come up with innovative ideas that will position the country as a world leader. 

If we ignore that the country is failing these young men who have untapped potential, we also close our eyes to the fact that we are committing to reserve many, many resources to an unproductive cause. This is because the lack of education will force many of these current generation youngsters into the wrong path, prompting them to engage in anti-social activities. In later life, many of these young men may ‘graduate’ into more serious crimes, requiring the investment of state and national resources into identifying them, controlling them and incarcerating them to keep them isolated from society. 

The Great City Schools of America have already recognized that the roots of the problem lie in the formative years of young men of color. The 60 urban school systems have pledged to invest efforts into eliminating the inequities that hamper the growth of these students. It is up to every one of us to accept our share of the responsibility in ensuring that young men of color are given the impetus, the tools to become society’s most respected, most valuable assets instead of forcing on them a life that can only take them and the country, with them,

An Effective Response to Trauma and PTSD Among School Students

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is a mental disorder that affects an individual after a traumatic incident that poses a threat to their well-being. This condition is often overlooked in schools.  In school students, PTSD can be caused by numerous incidents ranging from bullying and abuse to school shootings. Many students, especially those from the urban core communities experience extreme violence either by being a victim or witnessing crimes on a daily basis.  Many of these students live in constant fear for their lives as they travel to school through gang-infested neighborhoods.  With those barriers to get over on a daily basis, it is understandable that PTSD students don’t fare well in school.

Students suffering from PTSD often seem distant, irritable and short tempered. Depression is one of the most common side-effects of PTSD. Students that are suffering from PTSD often show a drop in academic performance, become anti-social, and are more likely to drop out of school. Trauma intervention for students is becoming a major health concern and the intervention of parents, teachers and counselors play a vital role in the well-being of a traumatized child. Here are a few tips on dealing with students who have PTSD:

• Listen

Provide the student with the opportunity to talk about the incident openly and express their worries, anxieties and so on. Have an open mind, be empathetic and listen to what the student is saying. Don't ask them too many questions as going too deep into the logistics, right after the incident, can lead to more stress for the student.

• Teach

Teachers and counselors must help the student understand the normal stress reactions along with coping and problem-solving techniques. Teachers/counselors need to make the student understand that it's OK to be sad, angry and moody in general, after a traumatic incident. If students are chastised for their reactions, instead of being taught how to deal with them, they tend to internalize it and get even more stressed/ depressed.

• Re-establish relationships

Students who suffer from PTSD often tend to isolate themselves and not talk to parents, relatives or friends. This will add to their feelings of loneliness, sadness and numbness. It is vital for them to re-establish these relationships and build an effective support system. It is an essential part of providing support for traumatized students.

Once they are more comfortable, normal routines such as going to school, extracurricular practice can be re-established.

• Protect the student

Help the student understand the circumstances related to the event in an age appropriate manner. It is important to protect the student from further physical or psychological harm either from bullies or in some cases, by repetitive and excessive coverage by the media.

Teachers can also help by engaging students in safety drills to make them feel safer.

• Showcase positive behavior

Teachers and staff can help students by showcasing model behavior. When the student is irritable and moody, teachers and counselors need to remain calm and show balanced emotions. While dealing with traumatized students, adults need to be positive about the future and assure them that things will get better. The more the negativity the more stressed the student becomes.

• Getting the parents involved

Once the student is comfortable talking about the incident, it is advisable to get the parents involved as this makes the recovery process easier. The parents need to understand what their child is going through and deal with it accordingly. It is important that they understand to never belittle their child's problems as it can deeply affect the child's psyche.

So with united efforts both from school officials and relatives/guardians, a traumatized child will recover well and not have any residual trauma.

How to Move from the 19th Century Education Model

Even though free public education had been declared for all 150 years ago in Massachusetts and over the next half a century almost every other state followed suit to provide education to everyone, the quality of education that is imparted currently is not of much difference from that of 150 years ago.

Science and technology took the world by storm and helped in evolution and automation of almost every industry apart from the education industry. We still live in a world where school or college education refers to students belonging to the same age group, sitting in a classroom, and being taught by the same teacher. The teacher’s discourse is one and the same for all students irrespective of their intellectual capabilities.

The factory model of imparting education

The 19^th century model of imparting education was inspired by the factory line model, where taking in large number of students and teaching them the same things altogether at the same time resulted in greater learning rather than giving personal attention to students depending on their learning capabilities. Just like factories did not support personalization, the same applied to schools. The structure also bore resemblance to the Prussian schooling model, where the idea was to build a common bond through national identity. Large number of students studying together would melt religious differences among them making them one and the same.

How to make the much needed change?

Given today’s educational scenario, a change is imperative as we now live in more complex and diverse environments with powerful technological capabilities and a broader vision for education. It is time to change the factory-model classroom, credit requirements and age-based grade levels. Using powerful technological tools, schools can introduce software that helps each student to learn at their own pace. It is important to align the way the software works to the way the teacher extend the lessons in the classes, as one model is highly personalized while the other more standardized. With different tools made available to schools, teachers need to adapt to the new ways of teaching, so that this change can be successful.

Education should be structured around the format of what we want the students to be able to do, the resources we have at hand and the immense possibilities that lie in front of us. By employing model providers who can use these ideas to create structures to impart education would be a great idea. Model providers may or may not handle the school administrative processes as well. Their primary task will be to provide new education structures to schools and oversee their implementation and customization based on each school and its needs.

Once these models begin to develop and take effect, state agencies will be able to analyze the impact of these models on the learning of the students. Based on their observations they can reward the models that are successful and have brought in good results while decertifying the ones that didn’t.

It is time for us to use technology in this much needed sector of education and make some positive changes that have been predicted for a long time but are yet to take effect.

Designing Ideal School Environments for Boys and Young Men

By Anthony L. Hubbard

Studies, surveys and research over the last few decades have proven time and again that single sex schools function better to serve students in a more wholesome way as compared to coeducation schools. It is a proven and widely known scientific fact that boys and girls develop differently at different ages, both physically and psychologically. Single sex schools are better able to modify their assessment and training systems to accommodate these developments, since they have to only optimize it for either boys or girls, instead of for both.

The central idea behind this discussion is that urban boys, especially those of color, should have access to high quality public school education on par with private educational institutions to help them succeed academically and professionally. African American children should have high quality single sex education centers, which concentrate on developing them as unique individuals and provide them good role models from within their own community who they can readily identify with.

Designing and creating a good single sex school for young African American men

What are the parameters and factors that need to be considered, analyzed and customized to create single sex schools that can provide unique learning ecosystems to young urban African American boys and men? We discuss a few vital parameters here that need to be considered when designing a single sex school for boys, and how to go about doing it right.

Developing a vision and mission – It is the first and most important step in designing a good single sex school for boys. Knowing the reason behind starting a school and the results you wish to achieve, forms the foundation for designing a good school.

Your vision should enumerate why you wish to start a single sex school for African American boys in the city. It should clearly state what your idea is, why you wish to pursue the idea and what you plan to achieve by pursuing and implementing your idea.

Your mission should talk about how you plan to achieve the results and impact you have detailed in your vision. It should also talk about the values you wish to incorporate at the core of all your work.

The mission should take into consideration the following differences in genders and optimize educational plans for boys:

• Boys take more time learning vocabulary, writing and language skills.
• Boys are better in computation and motor skills related activities.
• Boys tend to move around a lot, prefer playing outdoors and using touch and physical handling to discover new objects.
• Boys also tend to be more aggressive, which means you will have to plan for avoiding or discouraging fights at school.

Teaching/learning/academic support and assessment systems – This refers to the various systems in place to ensure the school moves successfully towards fulfilling its vision and mission. The school education system should be designed such that it helps both students and teachers to develop their skills and grow over time, making the education system beneficial for all those involved.

It should have programs for teachers, educators and other academic staff at schools to help them understand the changing social, economic and legal structures related to education. This could include regular training and workshops, along with tickets for local, national and international educational conferences.

Sports should be given a lot of importance in the curriculum and boys should be encouraged to engage in healthy competition. Physical education and exercise should be made an intrinsic part of the entire education setup. Such physical activities help boys deal with all the youthful energy in a positive way so that they can concentrate better during classes.

It should have special programs and assessment systems in place to ensure students learn to the best of their ability and teachers are able to provide high quality education. Assessment systems should help better learning among students, should be fair to all and should be constantly reviewed and updated as students’ requirements change.

School climate and culture – The school environment should be inspiring, comfortable and ensure safety for all students. No matter how young or old, big or small, strong or weak a student, he should not feel endangered at school. He should be able to feel safe and secure within the premises and gain confidence to feel that way in the outside world as well. The school should feel comforting and nurturing to every student who comes to study.

Creating such an atmosphere at our school requires careful thought and consideration during the initial stages of designing a school, with detailed reviewing of plans on a regular basis to ensure it serves the purpose of good education well. You need to talk to students about concerns they might have about going to school, instances of bullying and feeling left out due to interests that are different from most other students, so that you can think of all that needs to be included in your design to make your school student-friendly.

A conducive environment for a boys' school should also incorporate a lot of physical activity. The seating arrangement should be such that they can keep moving around, as that would help them concentrate better.

Culture at the school should be one that is inclusive and unbiased. Cultural differences and uniqueness should be celebrated, encouraged and upheld as an asset to the school than as a liability. Diversity helps students get acquainted and be comfortable with differences among people, helping them adapt to the outside world much better and more easily.

School counseling and guidance – Most young boys go through developmental phases, where they are unsure of who they are, what they want to do with their lives or what choices they need to make in life. It is essential to be able to address these concerns at school, so that every student can perform well academically without being bogged down by problems and lack of guidance.

There needs to be a dedicated space with experts, where students can go to talk about their problems, ask questions and get help regarding personal, academic and professional queries. This space needs to inspire students to feel comfortable and open up about things that are bothering them, to actively seek out guidance and counseling without fear of rejection, ridicule or judgment.

Overall, single sex schools for boys need to take into consideration the following factors during planning and implementation of the school design and curriculum:

• Vision and mission that takes into account gender differences, so that the school is optimized for boys to study well, learn better and excel in life.
• Teachers should be made aware of gender differences and trained to teach boys in a way that they understand and learn.
• The school climate should be conducive for boys to move around, be physically active. It should be a place where they feel physically and emotional safe and secure.
• Counselors and guides who understand boys well should be appointed to talk to boys who may be facing problems at home, school or with other facets of life. They should feel understood and have someone to guide them the right way.

Well-designed single sex schools for urban African American boys and men can go a long way in putting them on an equal platform with their urban peers and help them succeed professionally. It can assist them with making informed decisions about their career and life, enabling them to pursue their goals with absolute passion and dedication.