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Visualizing a Plan for School-Community Connections
Introduction: Our Struggle In the late 1970's, Urie Bronfenbrenner, a child development theorist, wrote this:
This poignant description fits many American schools and Stemley is no exception. With this disconnect apparent, several Stemley classroom teachers began to research possibilities to alleviate this frustrating situation. Developing a Vision via Action Research To the casual passerby, one might suspect that the children in a second grade class are being "babysat" by yet another mindless video. It's not until one of the student's poses the question, "What did your grandparents bring with them when they came to America?" that one realizes something powerful is happening. These children are conducting an interview via video conference with Cornerstone's director, Steve Prigohzy. Steve's Russian grandparents immigrated to America at the turn of the century. What is so powerful about the interview is not necessarily the subject matter itself, but rather the culmination of knowledge the children have acquired as a result of a student led inquiry on migration and community involvement. They have bridged an important gap in learning by scaffolding on their previous knowledge gained from literary works with new information through student generated interviews with community members. Bridging the gap between school and community, in a first grade class, students involve community members in their project work on the life cycles of turtles. As part of their homework, the students interview family members and friends on their knowledge of turtles, and many parents help their children conduct internet research on turtle anatomy, habitats, and life cycles. They also invite a "turtle expert" from the sixth grade (who also happens to be an older sister to one of our first graders) to come talk to our class. This generates more questions beyond the scope of imagination. Parents further help the students by bringing in artifacts, pictures, and books for us to add to research collection. The results are amazing! By including parents in the research process, students and teachers have planted the seed that parents are valued in the education of their children, thus making them more receptive to being a part of a new idea at Stemley – a generative curriculum. The above vignettes are from two projects carried out by teachers desiring to involve the community in the generation of curriculum. Sharing with colleagues, these teachers and others developed a vision for school-wide experiences that will empower the entire school community through integrated content related projects. What Role Did Research Play in Planning? Without question, parental and community involvement is critical to the success of our students. Research shows that when students' families and other community members are involved in education, both the students' achievement and attendance are positively influenced. Keeping this in mind, Stemley Road Elementary School set out to develop a partnership program that would extend to all community members in keeping with Cornerstone's Community Outreach philosophy. The goal for our Outreach Project is to develop a community culture where reading, writing, speaking, and listening about issues of critical importance to the community will be infused in the curriculum and the school culture as the children inquire about important ideas. This goal is based on the research conducted by Paula Rogovin in the Manhattan New School and other critical literacy researchers. This research supports the idea that primary research is based upon talk among community members. We chose to build our grant on this research because our collection of data and action research conducted by several Stemley grade levels, shows that communication is an important need for the language development of Stemley's children. How Will It Look Next Year? As we construct a plan for our Outreach Project, we divide the work between grades K-3. We will begin by involving the parents and community members in curriculum generation in two content areas of Social Studies and Science. Beginning with Kindergarten, we propose a Life on the Farm project that will be directly influenced by surveying parental and community members to ascertain the direction the curriculum will take. For instance, people in the community will be invited to participate on class field trips and group discussions relating to farm life, read aloud to children, and share their expertise of farming topics. Such experiences will meet academic standards through the Cornerstone Literacy Framework as well as the content areas of Social Studies and Science. The significance of this project will be the establishment of parental and community involvement from the very beginning of Stemley students' school career, which sets the foundation for a culture of future parental involvement. Taking into consideration the culture of the community, the job market and the recreation possibilities, we propose that First Grade pull these elements into a curriculum that would involve parents and students in the building of a soapbox car documented by student photography. Student generated questions and interviews will provide further additional research and build a foundation for student inquiry into community occupations and their relevance to the economy. Building upon the Cornerstone Literacy Framework, this project will also provide ample opportunities for authentic reading, writing, listening and speaking experiences. The significance of this project is the collaboration between community workers, parents and students in building the social studies curriculum theme of "We All Live Together". Talladega County is known for its automotive industry including the Honda Manufacturing facility and the Talladega Speedway which will provide real life opportunities for students to learn about their community. Second grade teachers will utilize the Cornerstone Literacy Framework and National Science Standards to initiate an inquiry project with the overall theme "Making Stemley a Better Place" via Gardening. The community's contributions will be valued and honored as the children record parent and community interviews in special reporter's notebooks, which will later be transferred into books and PowerPoint presentations for documentation of learning that is taking place. As a means to further engage parents and community members in the intellectual growth of the children, these artifacts will be then sent home and into the community in book form for families to enjoy and comment upon, thus developing a history of learning together. The children will further their knowledge of gardening through research of the gardening topic via books, magazines, video, internet, and continued interviews. As the information is collected, it will be added to a class book on the improvement project and housed in the school's library. The impact on students learning will be the possibilities that an inquiry curriculum provides. The inquiry will develop through questions generated from the interviews. Further impact on student learning will be evidenced as the students share their inquiry by making documentation panels on the interviews and the research they are conducting. This documentation will also serve as a primary assessment, reflective opportunity, and a communication tool between the teacher, the children, and their families as well as the school community. The premise for third grade's project, "The Greenhouse Effect", is established on the successful Gardening project conducted by the second grade students the previous year. The third grade curriculum will build upon and expand students' schema of life cycles, germination, composting and the water cycle through this project. Community involvement will be a direct result of oral and written interviews conducted and generated by students. This project will include a social studies component, in which students, family members and community workers, including horticulturalists and landscapers, will construct a small greenhouse for student research purposes and community use. The significance this project will have on student learning is that it encompasses all subject areas in third grade. This interdisciplinary study will impact student learning the following ways by providing engaging opportunities for rigorous learning across the curriculum, meeting national content area standards, and providing meaningful opportunities to incorporate the Cornerstone Literacy Framework. These opportunities include documentation through generate multimedia presentation on the construction and use of the greenhouse. Will We Succeed? In conclusion, research shows that the most immediate positive impact on student academic performance is a home-school contact. The National Education Goals panel states: "Every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children" (U. S. Department of Education, 1994). This goal as stated should have been met in the year 2000 in America's public schools. We expect that by involving the community via project work throughout the curriculum, students will be able to achieve higher levels of learning. In a review of sixty-six studies of how students succeed in school, Henderson and Berla (2001) synthesized the research by stating when parents become involved in children's education at school and in the community powerful changes take place with the results including one or more of the following:
It is our desire to provide a structured sequence of parental involvement that will follow the student through the early childhood years and result in students' school success. This project serves as a beginning for planned parental involvement and community generated curriculum that will meet the Cornerstone objective "to read, to write, to think critically, to reason, to analyze and evaluate information, to communicate effectively in a variety of forms, and to inquire systematically into any important matter" throughout the course of our student's school career.
* A significant difference between volunteers
and guest speakers is there role in the focused events.
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