Byron's Babbles

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On Monday I had the opportunity to dig deep into adolescent development and how this plays into future aspirations, beliefs, and behaviors of our students. I was introduced to identity development by Dr. Mandy Savitz-Romer of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She advocates that articulating aspirations and expectations, forming and maintaining strong peer and adult relationships, motivation, and goal setting should become a part of our DNA in education.

Mandy has so much knowledge in adolescent development and how to advance student success. In fact, she has quite literally written the book on it. We were given her new book this week, Fulfilling The Promise: Reimagining School Counseling to Advance Student Success. I am almost done with it and have to say it is awesome. I am sure you will be seeing blog post from me about the book in the near future.

There was also the opportunity on Monday for learning from Roberto Gonzales who is the preeminent academic expert on undocumented immigrant youth and the struggles they face. It was great to spend time with him because he has spent time with these youth getting, as he called it, “a worm’s eye view.” He understands how these issues play out in real-life. Most powerful for me was the idea of our undocumented immigrant youth straddling two worlds: neither from here or there. No one should have to live like that. Additionally, it was so powerful to gain an understanding, and I still have a huge amount to learn and understand, of the undocumented youth’s transition to “illegality.” As Roberto taught, illegality is not a noun but a verb as undocumented students move from protected to unprotected. I really needed this learning and can’t wait to read his book, Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America (University of California Press).

Then, if that was not already a lot of learning in one day, there was Dr. Anthony Abraham Jack. He wrote the book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Poor Students. Our interactions with students matter. I was struck thinking about how some of our engagement strategies favor a selected few – the students we like, that impress us, and we know. What about making sure we have the chance to know all students, not just the ones that are inherently comfortable interacting with teachers. We need to help all understand how to do that. One way he advocates for is office hours. But not like we have always done office hours. Office hours need to be collaboratively with students understanding exactly how they work. Students also need to be comfortable in asking questions and bringing anything to office hours.

As I did for Sunday’s learning this week in Thriving Students, here is my top 30 list of takeaways from the day of learning:

1. Information ≠ Action
2. A college going future identity
3. Dimensions of identity: groups, roles, self concept.
4. Marshaling: how do we use our resources.
5. Throwing forward: seeing oneself in the future.
6. Self-efficacy is the belief in the ability to accomplish a specific task.
7. Self-efficacy is domain specific.
8. We all have the ability to build self-efficacy.
9. What shapes self-efficacy?
   1. Mastery of experience
   2. Vicarious learning
   3. Social persuasion
   4. Affect
10. The “why” students go to college is very important.
11. There is a big difference between wanting to go to college and someone telling you they want you to go to college.
12. Motivation = Goals + Beliefs
13. Students need to be better planners for obstacles. We need to be their GPS and give them three different routes.
14. Control of Thoughts + Control of Emotions + Control of Behaviors = Self Regulation To Attain Goals
15. Many students straddle two worlds; they are neither from here or there.
16. We need to pay attention to how issues play out in real life.
17. We forget how powerful having an I.D. card is to a person.
18. Access is not inclusion.
19. Beware of unwritten curriculum – the unwritten rules of getting along in an institution.
20. We need to teach students how to interact with teachers and faculty.
21. Doubly disadvantaged = Lower Income + Attended Public School
22. Privileged Poor = Lower Income + Attended Private School
23. Secondary school and college officials disproportionately reward proactive engagement strategies. Instead of who deserves reward, it becomes who we like, who we know, and who impresses us most – not necessarily the deserving students.
24. Impress upon students it is more than normal to ask for help.
    1. It is smart
    2. It is expected
    3. It is rewarded
25. We must inspire students to build an inter-generational support network.
26. There is a difference between building a network and networking.
27. Language matters.
28. We need to make explicit what is now hidden to our students.
29. We need to make basic things accessible and digestible for our students.
30. We need to partner with families and promote our parents as super heroes.

Think about how great our country’s education system would be if we were able to make all 30 items above values that were in the DNA of our system and not just desired practices or boxes to check?