PRLC Conference Report #2

Here is the 2nd report from Jennifer.

NEA PRLC Conference Report #2

Saturday, February 26, 2011
Jennifer Rueda

I arrived around 8:00am for a surprisingly good continental breakfast. I couldn’t locate my colleagues, Adriana Aristizabal and Ivan Imancinelli because my phone had died. But I knew they were there.

The first session I attended was the English Language Learner (ELL) Culture and Equity Framework (ELL inclusion). (The NEA has an English Language Learner Culture, Equity and Language Training Module for Closing Achievement Gaps.) Although the focus was on successful support of ELL’s in K-12, I thought I might get something out of it and I was right.

I (re-) learned how our monolingual society rushes ELL’s thru the K-12 system, leading to a poor foundation in their academic English and heritage language. In addition, the student’s home culture and language are ignored or even crushed. In many teacher training schools, sound ELL pedagogical methods are taught; however, these are thrown out in favor of an English-only curriculum.

The presenters said school districts tend to look at ELL’s thru a “deficit view”, when it would behoove us to view every student thru an “assets view”

Deficit view: ELL’s are	Assets view: ELL’s are
Culturally and linguistically deprived	Culturally and linguistically enriched
Failing or low achieving	Unrecognized or underdeveloped abilities
At-risk	Resilient
Unmotivated	Engaged and self-motivated

The presenters feel that power, wealth and status are unequally distributed among cultural groups in the U.S. We were encouraged to reflect on how those unequal power relations affect our teaching and interactions with our students.

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Session number 2 was quite fun, uplifting and heartwarming. It was called “Taking Action to Create a Culture of Health” and it was presented by the OEA Choice Trust, the Oregon Public Health Division and Griffin Creek Elementary School (Medford area). First we paired up and examined some signage out in the hall. We learned about lifestyle choices that affect health and healthcare costs, such as:

· 8% of OEBB members accounted for 62% of total medical expenses

· Chronic conditions account for 25% of the OEBB healthcare costs (2009)

· High cholesterol accounts for 20% of the OEBB healthcare costs (2009)

· Arthritis accounts for 19% of the OEBB healthcare costs (2009)

· 41% of OEBB claims paid were preventable or modifiable

· 34% of OEBB members are overweight

· 28% of OEBB members are obese (these figures align nationally)

· HOWEVER, across OEBB claimants and employed& insuredOregonians, 62 - 63% are trying to lose weight.

THEREFORE (here’s the positive, upbeat message), school wellness programs are good investments. They improve health and health behaviors. They lower healthcare costs, create fewer work-related injuries, improve morale, improve retention of employees, and improve productivity. For every $1.00 spent, $5.00 is recovered.

Griffin Creek Elementary School has received the OEA Choice Trust Wellness Grant for the past two years (going on three) and they have seen many, many benefits:

· Staff lost 300lbs

· Developed stronger and more flexible bodies

· Became a 100% non-smoking campus

· Changed to healthy snacks, soups, salads and veggie bags

To comply with the grant, Griffin Creek has to keep good fitness data (and fitness journals) as they were required to turn in results to OEA Choice Trust later. Griffin Creek found that they need a variety of activities, a variety of incentives, an emotionally safe place and the acceptance that everyone starts their fitness journey from a different point. In addition, the wellness program should be designed by each individual school since each school is unique. Schools can use the “Blueprint for Wellness” found at OEA Choice Trust’s website. There are eight steps which must be followed and, of course, a commitment. Data must be collected and outcomes given back to OEA Choice Trust.

In order to reach their goals, Griffin Creek partnered with their local YWCA, who performedpre- and post-BMI and fitness tests, health screenings, and then designed individual exercise plans. Griffin Creek also purchased equipment with their grant money- scales, weights, stretch bands, rollers, pedometers, blood pressure cuff, and etcetera.

In addition, the staff of Griffin Creek organizes:

· Monthly 2k runs

· Lunch time intramurals

· Cooking classes

· “Boot camp” 2x week

· Money incentives

· Fruit and veggie-eating challenges

· Water-drinking challenges

· Physical-fitness challenges (sit ups, push ups, etc)

· Local walks and hikes

Resources:

· www.neaprlc.org

· www.stretchware.com(classroom stretching and moving exercises)

· www.jamschoolprogram.com

· www.OEAchoice.com

· www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/worksite (public health)

· Holly Spruance hs@oeachoice.com

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Next I went to the luncheon, where we had more good food and a fantastic speaker. The speaker was Yong Zhau Ph.D. who is currently Presidential Chair and Associate Dean for Global Education (College of Education at the University of Oregon), where he also serves as the director of the Center for Advanced Technology in Education (CATE). In essence, his talk focused on transforming our current, perhaps broken public education to a creative, world-class system that produces students ready for life in the age of globalization.

Entrepreneurship and creativity do not come from government planning, standardized curriculum, or standardized testing. On the contrary, government planning, standardized curriculum, and testing tend to work against both entrepreneurship and creativity. Moreover, entrepreneurship and creativity are much more than a set of prescribed knowledge and skills. They are more spiritual, psychological, social, and cultural than simply cognitive skills. Therefore we cannot wait until they grow up and provide a crash course on entrepreneurship and creativity. We have to start young and deliberately work to develop what is needed for entrepreneurship.http://zhaolearning.com/

According to Dr. Zhau, what matters in public education is:

· Diversity of talents

· Tolerance

· Creativity

· Entrepreneurship

· Passion

He says “We need people to invent jobs, not hire a workforce”. He also said the strength of American public education is that it:

· values individual talents

· inspires passion and respect

· tolerates deviation

· cultivates entrepreneurship.

Because of these traits, Dr. Zhau said many Asian places, such as Singapore, South Korea, Japan and China are leaving standardization and ranking behind to become more like the American public education system. It’s up to us not to let the “reformers” change American public education into the old Asian system.

Dr. Zhau’s slides can be found on his website, http://zhaolearning.com/ or here: http://zhaolearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/NEAPacific2011.pdf

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Next it was time to visit a session entitled “Bargaining in Times of Economic Crisis”. Unfortunately, the room was packed and they would let no-one else in. I went back and found my colleagues, including Camilo Sanchez, a Skills Development instructor. We discussed the conference and some issues facing part-time instructors until 4:30pm, when we all went home to walk our dogs (Well, Ivan and I did, at any rate).