When beginning to think about their future, it is not uncommon for job-seekers to be asking questions like:

• “What’s in it for me?”
• “How will this position help me progress in the long run?”
• “What are the perks to working for this organization over another?”

Part of the answer to these questions lies in the opportunities for career and professional development that an organization provides.  Knowing the pathways taken by those that have gone before you can be a valuable insight into what the future holds for you as well.

Citizen Schools Career Fair 2012

At Citizen Schools, second year Teaching Fellows are provided with job search support such as personal career advisors, resume and cover letter workshops, and a career fair with over 25 participating organizations that want to recruit Citizen Schools talent.

As a result, graduating Teaching Fellows pursue a number of paths in diverse fields.  The four main career pathways are these:

Chris Conroy - Teaching Fellow

Classroom Teaching:  After discovering he wanted to be closer to “the front line of education”, Chris Conroy joined the TF Class of 2008. The opportunity to instruct, work within the Boston Public School system, and communicate with families and community members gave him the opportunity to see his students’ lives and development from a very broad perspective and in turn allowed the kids to “shine a little light into my life.” Chris has since become a special education teacher at Codman Academy where he strives to create a positive and supportive classroom culture for his students.   Chris teaches ten students from grades 9 through 12 in a classroom called the Higher Learning Institute, for students having difficulty accessing mainstream curriculum.  Chris says his experience at Citizen Schools prepared him for the “complexity of working in a school system.”  It was during his time as a Teaching Fellow that he learned to “respect the young people I worked with and where they come from.” What started at Citizen Schools has become a dedication to “meeting students where they are.”

 Nonprofit Leadership: Emily Msall came to Citizen Schools right after she graduated from Columbia University.  In her second year as a Teaching Fellow, Emily had a morning partnership at Citizen Schools Headquarters in Staff Alumni Engagement.  While at Headquarters, Emily met with a few Education Pioneers Fellows.  As she learned more about the organization, she decided to apply for a position with them.  Emily has been with Education Pioneers since her Fellowship ended, working first as a Program Associate and now as the Manager of National Admissions.  She is still involved with Citizen Schools, serving as the 2009 Class Marshall and volunteering to be a resource for current fellows.  Emily knows that her time at Citizen Schools prepared her for her work, teaching her how to balance many responsibilities at once and how to communicate effectively with a variety of stakeholders.  During her time with Citizen Schools, Emily also learned that her passion lies not in the classroom, but rather in the behind-the-scenes work of supporting other people to do their job well.

Ben Duda - Teaching Fellow

Public Policy and Advocacy: “Citizen Schools was an amazing collection of smart and passionate people,” says Ben Duda.  “We could achieve as much as we wanted to. There were leaders, inspiring teachers, and higher-order thinkers that I had not had exposure to in the non-profit sector.   After Citizen Schools, I knew more about how to articulate and pursue outcomes and strategies.”  After the fellowship, in 2006, Ben earned a Master’s Degree in Public Policy with a focus on Urban Policy and Non-profit Management from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. In Baltimore, he also served in a mayoral fellowship and as the graduate assistant at Innovation High School. Currently, Ben is the Executive Director of AmeriCorps Alums, which is an organization that, among other things, works to highlight the pathways that AmeriCorps Alumni take.

For Profit Sector: Valerie worked with Citizen Schools from 2001 to 2003 as a Teaching Fellow at the McCormack Middle School in Massachusetts. The Fellowship taught Valerie how to be a dynamic communicator. “I had to learn the facets of creative communicating and instruction,” she says. Along with communication, Valerie learned team management, a skill that she has brought with her to Goulston and Storrs, the law firm where she currently works. The thirteen-year-old energy that was so hard to harness as a Teaching Fellow taught her a lot about group management and motivation. So how did she end up in a law firm? After the Fellowship, Valerie went to law school and spent her summers interning at fair-housing practices. “In every place I’ve lived, I have been curious about neighborhoods and communities – the history, the housing choices, the availability.” She now works for the Goulston and Storrs where she deals with for-profit and non-profit developers to create affordable housing in Boston.

These snapshots provide an idea for the kind of growth and development that Citizen Schools fosters for its Teaching Fellows in an effort to ensure their continued success after they depart from the organization.

Need more convincing?  Below, you can find a list of organizations where Teaching Fellow Alumni have worked.

How has a company’s network and career development initiatives set you up for success?  Share stories below!

Citizen Schools News:

• Charlotte Chamber – 1/26/12 – Bob About Town Visits Citizen Schools – Charlotte Chamber President Bob Morgan visited MLK Middle School last week while students were preparing for their 6 Degrees of Charlotte interviews. He was able to talk to a few students about how they are preparing for the event.
• East Durham Children’s Initiative – 1/27/12 – What is EDCI? – A video featuring Jill Ullman, the Development Director of Citizen Schools North Carolina, is featured on the landing page of the EDCI website.
• The Charlotte Observer:  South Charlotte News – 1/29/12 – Event Helps At-Risk Students Network, Succeed – The Citizen Schools’ 6 Degrees of Charlotte networking event is featured in this article.
• TED Charlotte- 1/31/12 – Citizen Schools Connects 8^th Grade Students to Local Professionals – The 6 Degrees of Charlotte is featured in this article written by Abby Whisenant, the Executive Assistant & Communications Associate of Citizen Schools North Carolina.
• Thread Square – 2/1/12 – Sewing for Citizen Schools – Citizen Schools was mentioned in this blog post that describes a recent sewing class that took place with Citizen Schools students.
• The Harvard Crimson – 2/1/12 – How to Grow STEM – Article mentions Google’s support of Citizen Schools STEM initiatives.
• The Boston College Chronicle – 2/2/12 – GSSW, Capstone Launch Social Innovation Effort – Citizen Schools and Eric Schwarz, CEO and co-founder of Citizen Schools, are mentioned in this article that discusses a recent forum at Boston College where Eric spoke.

Education Stories and News:

• Education Week: Digital Education (Blog) – 1/26/12 – School of One Creators Unveil New Nonprofit – New Classroom Innovation Partners will launch middle school math programs in three cities including Chicago and Perth Amboy, NJ under the name “Teach to One: Math.”
• The New York Times – 1/30/12 – The Great Divorce – Article discusses Charles Murray’s new book “Coming Apart” that looks at how America is dividing into a two-caste society.
• USA Today – 2/1/12 – Obama Wants Schools to Speed Digital Transition – Story that discusses Obama’s plan to have an e-textbook in every student’s hand by 2017.
• The Washington Post – 1/29/12 – Is College Not For Poor Kids? – Article discusses a list used by the College Success Foundation to help disadvantaged students prepare for college and graduation.

We are excited to announce our new partnership with SurveyMonkey Contribute.  Sign up to be a member on Contribute, and you will receive opinion surveys from SurveyMonkey. For every survey you take, SurveyMonkey will donate $0.50 to Citizen Schools, and you will get a chance to win $100 in an instant win game. Sign up here!

I was privileged to participate in a Citizen Schools event in which 8th graders from Oakland, California got to practice their networking skills with a handful of “adults” with jobs, like me.

The whole idea was to get these kids to practice networking skills: handing out their resumes, talking about their career aspirations. Awesome!

1) Kids Like To Smile More Than Adults

Even though these 8th graders were super-nervous, they were full of smiles. I wish us adults did that more often at our professional events.

2) Kids Can Be Quite Serious About Their Careers

This guy above (on the right) walked right up to me and said:

“You are an entrepreneur. I want to invent something and start my own business. Let’s talk.”

Right on!

3) Networking Is Not Natural — It’s Downright Scary

I shook a lot of sweaty palms and most kids had a hard time looking me in the eye.

Once we broke the ice, they relaxed.

But it reminded me that we as humans are not born with the ability to network. We have to learn it.

4) Kids Dream Big But Also Within Reason

Kids I talked to said they wanted to be a:

• Professional soccer player or wrestler
• Lawyer
• Psychologist
• Fashion designer
•  Videogame designer/tester
• Doctor
• Rocket Engineer
• Cosmetologist

And the majority wanted to attend Stanford University for college!

5) Kids Work Hard & Are Committed To Getting The Job Done

These kids attend middle school until 6pm every night! They were here networking with me after 8+ hours of schooling.

Awesome!

Thanks again to Joe Ross, Nora Germano, Danielle Sharon and the rest of the Citizen Schools crew for helping to make this happen (and Minnie from Google for connecting us).

The kids here want success, and their parents want success for them. But since they don’t usually experience the opportunities for learning and networking that kids across the highway get, the odds are they will drop out by high school and be underdogs for the rest of their lives.

Meet the people who are working hard to make sure that doesn’t happen for the children who go to Cesar Chavez Academy. The motto here is “Dream big, work hard, give back.” You’ll want to do all three of those things when you see what’s possible when people step up and get involved:

This film, directed by Aaron Shadwell (who also told the story of the Edwards Middle School) looks at some of the amazing people who are closing the opportunity gap between Menlo Park and East Palo Alto. By partnering with Citizen Schools, principal Amika Guillaume is giving her students at Cesar Chavez Academy the time and “human capital” they need to discover their own potential. Here’s more of what she told us:

Why does this city even exist? Why is there a city of such poverty — 90% below the line of poverty — 90% free or reduced lunch in our school? And I could probably walk to an $8 million home from here. These kids go to Europe in the summer.  They have karate after school. They have SAT tutoring. The children on the west side — they also don’t get home until six — sometimes seven, sometimes eight — because they have piano, they have violin, they have gymnastics, they have sports, they have whatever.

 

I’m a big fan of, when you have something that you’re complaining about, you need to figure out what the source of the problem is and then try to fix it. And so that’s why I said, okay, I want to become a school leader.

 

My uncle used to be a migrant farm worker. He marched with Cesar Chavez.  He worked with Cesar Chavez. The inspiration of Cesar Chavez is so compelling to so many of our students because they can relate to him and his family.

 

I want to be a part of the change that’s going to bring the school back where it was. If we reach what I hope we reach, there is a buzz in the community. “Did you know the kids at Chavez built a solar car?  Did you know the kids at Chavez have real lives going on?” And then I’m going to start getting phone calls. “Hey, can I transfer my kid to Chavez?  Oh, did you know the kids at Chavez are talking about college field trips?” And then I’m going to start getting a waiting list.

 

We are here in partnership for the children. Together we’re going to make this work.

Meanwhile, Ricardo Benavidez, Manager of Community Relations at Cisco in San Jose, CA, was helping provide funding to Citizen Schools when it struck him that he had benefited from apprenticeships when he was a kid:

I believe that I had my first informal apprenticeship around 5th or 6th grade. My neighbor was a mechanic. I would sit there, and one day, he invited me to jump off the fence and help him out. And that summer, I spent six days a week working for Paul Adkins. It developed to Paul asking me a little bit about myself, my interests, my grades. The first time in my life anyone had ever asked me about my grades or to see my report card. When your parents are from  a different country, they come with little education, they don’t have the background to really know what a report card stands for. “Richie, how are you doing?” Looks at my grades and says, “Hey, there’s definitely some room for improvement.”

 

I was inspired. I was motivated. I found why learning was important and what it could lead to. And just create new opportunities that hadn’t existed in my family. And I think by middle school, I was getting straight As.

 

I didn’t think of it as an apprenticeship until I learned about this program and what it does. I want to do the same for another 5th or 6th grader in my neighborhood or another student who perhaps doesn’t know why going to school is important.

There is an East Palo Alto down the road from every university, every corporate headquarters, and every wealthy suburb in America. It’s an overwhelming challenge. With Citizen Schools, each of us can reach over the barriers that prevent kids from achieving great things. And together, we can close the gap between dropping out and shining bright.

Join the second shift of educatorsTeach an apprenticeshipInvest in Citizen Schools

A lot of people in education talk about achievement.  And a lot talk about opportunity.  But too few put the two together. Please read on and consider applying by February 3rd to become an AmeriCorps Teaching Fellow at Citizen Schools, where you can help build a movement to increase opportunity and student achievement.

At Citizen Schools our mission is to close the opportunity and the achievement gap by providing children with dramatically more time for learning, including more time for academics and more time for a well-rounded education.  Participating middle school students get more time to practice their academics; and they also get to work with lawyers and architects and engineers to make cool things and to understand the link between school and careers.

It all adds up to opportunity, and it is proven to drive achievement.  In fact, an external evaluation indicated that Citizen Schools erased the achievement gap in graduation rates and on state test scores – all while making learning more engaging and fun.  Last year Citizen Schools’ Expanded Learning Time schools in Boston and New York lifted student achievement as much or more than the most successful charter schools, such as KIPP.

Citizen Schools’ National Teaching Fellowship is your opportunity to serve as an educator, to grow as a professional, and to connect children with the abundant resources in their community.  If you have the passion,  dedication, and commitment to educational excellence to accept the challenge to serve as an AmeriCorps member with Citizen Schools,  you could be  changing the lives of middle school students next year.  The time to act is now.

By meeting the upcoming application deadline of February 3^rd, you will improve your chances of being accepted  as a Teaching Fellow.  Middle school students across the country need you to step up.  Help us close the opportunity  and achievement gaps: apply to serve in the National Teaching Fellowship today.

January 29, 2012

Fourth Annual 6 Degrees of Charlotte will be Feb. 2

Citizen Schools North Carolina is hosting a “6 Degrees of Charlotte” event where students will get the opportunity to learn networking skills and meet experts in the fields that they are interested in entering. Learn more about the upcoming event.

Here’s former Teaching Fellow Lia Sheperd, who served as part of a team of caring adults who invested their time, talent, and resources to put students on the path to success in high school, college, and career.

Learn more about the Citizen Schools Teaching Fellowship here. 

Dr. King's legacy lives on in schools

Earlier this month, we celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a man whose legacy of peaceful protest and indefatigable pursuit of justice still resonates in schools across the country. One could even argue that Dr. King’s message is stronger and more vivid than ever in this modern age, when an African American man is one of the only presidents our students have ever known. The national holiday commemorating Dr. King is an opportunity for us to reflect on the past, assess the present and dream of the future. Dr. King’s universal message of freedom and equality also provides a topic around which teachers and students of all backgrounds can unite in solidarity, despite our differences. And so, I decided to take time out of the day to teach a lesson on non-violent protest in honor of MLK day.

However, I knew that I did not want to rehash the same points that these students have heard in school since their first days of elementary. Most students have heard the tale of Rosa Parks, of the “I Have a Dream” speech, of the civil rights marches. I wanted to take the classic story of Dr. King and the movement he was so closely associated with and rebrand it for the contemporary citizen classroom. As luck would have it, the day I decided to teach this lesson was the same day of the anti-SOPA Internet black-out. On this day, innumerable websites either shut down or altered their websites in protest of SOPA, a bill introduced in Congress that would effectively enable the US government to censor the Internet. What better way to learn about non-violent protest than by discussing such a protest happening as we spoke?

Google Hompage blackout for SOPA protest

I was apprehensive as to whether such an abstract topic like SOPA and Internet censorship would escape my students. To make it tangible, I introduced this topic by showing the students the Google homepage, which had blacked out its logo, and Wikipedia, which had completely shut down. This provoked interest but didn’t get the conversation started as I would have liked. Fortunately, I had another trick up my sleeve, an angle that I knew would catch their attention.

Wikipedia blackout for SOPA protest

I explained that under SOPA, if you were to share a video or song from YouTube on a friend’s Facebook wall, the government could have the authority to shut down your Facebook page or even the entire Facebook website! Suddenly, the class exploded. “That’s a force, Mr. Beach.” “The government did not think that one through.” “They can’t do that to my page!” The students, having been brought up in an Internet culture of peer-to-peer sharing, simply could not understand why this was happening.

The SOPA discussion went on for quite some time, taking twists and turns to talk about copyright, the ethics of file-sharing, and the power of the Internet to affect change. The dynamic and genuine discussion was enough to make a teacher like me grin from ear to ear. But it wasn’t over yet! Next, I showed them a slideshow of other famous examples of non-violent protest. They got a kick out of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-In’s (“What’s ‘Hair Peace?’”) and were blown away by the powerful imagery of Tank Man in Tiananmen Square. The students’ imaginations were ignited; questions abounded. I concluded the lesson by showing my students a picture of the Egyptian masses in Tahrir Square and a video with photos of the Egyptian revolution narrated by quotes from Dr. King, bringing the lesson to a full circle.

Protesters united in Egypt

I was astounded and inspired by how enthusiastic my students were during this discussion. They clearly wanted to know so much more about the world they live in and despite their age, already had well-formed opinions and ideas about social issues. They steered the conversation to what they wanted to say and learn while remaining focused on the central theme of non-violent protest and social justice. I could not have asked for a more successful lesson or a more engaged group of students.

I share this story to remind us all of our roles as civic mentors for these young citizens. 21^st century skills certainly have their place but so does the discussion of what it means to be a 21^st century citizen. Thinking critically and discussing openly our ideas about the world we live, a world these students will soon inherit, is as essential as any element of Citizen Schools. We must not forget this.

The Education News Weekly Roundup is brought to you by Holly Trippett, the Public Relations Intern at Citizen Schools and a senior at Emerson College studying Marketing Communications.

Citizen Schools News:

•   The Koinoiah – Winter 2012 – Citizen Schools: Increasing Access to the American Dream – The Koinoiah is an organization based out of Charlotte, NC that focuses on increasing the awareness of community maintenance and civic responsibility. Citizen Schools received a full-page feature in the magazine, which also provided insight from Jon Gilson, a board member and corporate lawyer in North Carolina, who also volunteers as a Citizen Teacher.  Please go to page 6 of the magazine to view the Citizen Schools feature.

Noteworthy Education News:

• TIME: Ideas – 1/11/12 – School of Thought: 12 Education Activists for 2012  – A list of 12 education activists to watch in 2012 complied by Andy Rotherham.
• TIME: Ideas – 1/12/12 - ‘Let’s Not Weaken It’: An Exclusive Interview with George W. Bush on NCLB – An interesting interview with George W. Bush looking at No Child Left Behind ten years later.
• Education Week – 1/17/12 – What Really Works in School Turnarounds? – This article looks at the faults in the U.S. Department of Education’s plan to turn schools across the country around. It also includes a list of successful keys that aid in school turnarounds.
• Education Week – 1/18/12 – A Conversation With Arne Duncan – This interview with Arne Duncan covers all of “the hot education topics of the day: waivers, Race to the Top, reauthorization, and the election.”