citizen schools

A Politician with a Passion for Education

Otto Katt is a Second Year Teaching Fellow at the Irving Middle School in Roslindale, MA.

Boston City Councillor John R. Connolly

Recently, Boston Councillor John R. Connolly gave an inspiring talk at a Citizen Schools staff meeting. Councillor Connolly is the Chair of the City Council’s Committee on Education. Councillor Connolly was himself an educator, having taught at the Nativity Mission School in New York City and the Boston Renaissance Charter School. Councillor Connolly is passionate about working to close the achievement gap and is intimately familiar with the challenges facing schools in urban areas like Boston.

Mr. Connolly spoke about his first interaction with Citizen Schools, when current Managing Director & Chief Mobilization Officer, John Werner, was recruiting students at the Boston Renaissance Charter School for Citizen Schools apprenticeships. Connolly highlighted the passion with which parents of students at the Irving Middle School in Roslindale, MA, fought for keeping Citizen Schools as a school partner during a period of great transition. He also shared his support of the funding secured for the Irving and Dever-McCormack school in Dorchester for expanded learning time (ELT).

Councillor Connolly spoke about several issues facing Boston schools and education reform in general.

  • More time: Boston schools have one of the shortest schools days. This fact, among others, is part of the reason so many of Boston’s students are not prepared for life after graduation.
  • Education Budget:  As municipalities across the country face tightening budgets, the effective use of resources will continue to be of paramount importance.
  • Contract Negotiations: the need for teacher evaluations, the need to reform and improve vocational education, and to ensure that Boston has a successful K-college pipeline that benefits all of its students.

Citizen Schools is thankful for all the work Councillor Connolly has done for the students and families of Boston, and looks forward to continuing to work together to make a difference in lives and of communities of those students and their families.

Watch a clip from Councillor Connolly’s talk:

Where else should we focus, as citizens, to ensure that Boston Public Schools students are getting the education they deserve?

A Challenge to Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump

Ashley Trotman works in the IT Department at Citizen Schools, and was a student in the first apprenticeship pilot taught in 1995

Via CNN.com

“Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works, so they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash.’ Unless it’s illegal.”

- Newt Gingrich

Newt Gingrich has a strong opinion about inner-city kids. Now he and Donald Trump say they have an idea: to teach an apprenticeship to 11 New York City kids.

Citizen Schools has been organizing volunteer-taught apprenticeships in inner-city schools for 16 years. It’s a great idea. We’d love to have the two of them come in and bring learning to life.

But I must say, they won’t get far with Newt’s mindset.

I grew up an inner city kid. Heck, I still am one at heart. I was raised in Dorchester.

But before I was born, my mother had already graduated from Boston College’s Carroll School of Management.She did not get a full ride. It took her a decade to pay off each and every student loan, but she did it. You don’t get something for nothing – I learned that from her. Before we could watch TV on the weekends, my two brothers and I had to do homework that my mother left out on the table. And they had to help me with my homework as well, before we dreamed of watching Muppet Babies.

I already knew right from wrong. But in Citizen Schools, I also learned that if you want to be taken seriously, you have to be a serious person. When the adults of Citizen Schools took the time to listen to me and valued my opinions, it changed my life.

Citizen Schools apprentices with a volunteer - showing respect

Fifteen years later, I am a technology professional—working at the national headquarters of Citizen Schools. And I teach my own apprenticeships, with students at two inner city schools in Malden and Roxbury. They taught me who Justin Bieber is, and I was able to show them what a “Zach Morris” phone is. We were all equally amazed at this new info.

I was told I had “problem students.” But I never viewed them as problem students, so we did not have a fight once. When I thanked my first class on the last day for their excellent behavior during the semester, one student raised her hand and said they respected us, because we respected them.

I challenge any adult to face some of the challenges that these 11-year-olds are facing on a daily basis and have the courage to wake up before the sun and work until after it goes down.

Or, if that’s too much, I challenge them to become a Citizen Teacher at one of our New York schools and see just exactly what our kids are made of. What will you teach?

I’m sure they’ll show Newt and Donald a thing or two—that is, if they take the time to listen.

“Knowing where something comes from changes how you feel about it.”

—Prof. Sut Jhally, UMass Amherst

Making Work, Work: 4 Ways to Advocate for Yourself on the Job

Ann Lambert  is a second year Teaching Fellow at the Irving Middle School, Roslindale MA

1.)  Recognize your resources—and use them

Courtesy of diversitymbamagazine.com

At most organizations there are a wealth of people with extremely interesting stories to tell, past experiences from which you can learn, and connections to share.  Talk to them.  Get on their radar.  If they recognize you as a hungry employee (for lunch, yes… but also for opportunity) with initiative and a desire to learn, they’ll call upon you when opportunities arise.  Get your name out there:  you never know when you’ll reap the benefits of that 10 minute chat you had with the head of the department. 

 I know from experience…  After requesting an informational interview with Citizen Schools’ President and COO during the first year of the fellowship, I was instantly introduced to three extremely accomplished people working in organizations or fields that I found interesting.  Your colleagues are connected.  Let them connect you. 

Courtesy activerain.com

2.)  Speak Up

Unhappy?  Don’t assume you’re the exception to the rule.  Make your voice heard and others will rally behind you.  Take the time to organize your thoughts and articulate your point, then:  Send an email.  Talk to a respected colleague or mentor.  Arrange a meeting with your supervisor.  Do something.  Maybe nothing will change… but you won’t know until you try!

I know from experience… As Teaching Fellows, we have the opportunity to work with an external partner or a department within Citizen Schools as our “morning partnership”, in addition to the work we do in the schools during the afternoon.  Towards the end of my first year of the fellowship, I had yet to hear what my partnership placement would be for my second year; and it was unclear as to whether or not I would even have a say in what my position would be.  Feeling uncertain and anxious about what lay ahead, and hearing similar gripes from my Teaching Fellow colleagues, I drafted an email to the appropriate audience expressing our concerns.  Within a week, a clarifying email went out, a person was designated to field questions related to the impending year, and Fellows were given a clear system and timeline for how and when they would be assigned a partnership for the following year.  There is power in words.  Use them as a catalyst for action.

3.)  Do your research to help your case

Having raw data—quantitative and qualitative—can never hurt.  Your superiors are more inclined to listen if you can substantiate your claims.  Whether it’s a formal survey or compiling anecdotes from relevant constituents, find a way to back up the reasons for your proposal or demands.

I know from experience…  I spent the first year of my job writing a monthly newsletter to be distributed across the national network of Teaching Fellows: “The Frequent Flyer”.  The data generated by the program I used to create and distribute the e-letter showed that between 25 and 35% of Fellows were reading it—not bad for an electronic publication, but not enough to justify the time and effort put into it.  So, I compiled the facts and figures, administered a survey to discern the most effective ways to disseminate information to Teaching Fellows, led focus groups asking the audience what they wanted, and proposed a new communication system to my supervisor.  Let’s just say, “The Frequent Flyer” doesn’t come so frequently anymore; and a new communication system has taken its place.

Courtesy of bazzeta.pupazzo.org

4.)  Know what you want… then ask.

Your mom, your dad, your teacher … someone in your life, at one point or another, has used some form of the age-old adage “the stupidest question is the one that’s not asked”.  This is especially true when vying for a position, a responsibility, or an opportunity in the workplace.  After all, you can’t advocate for yourself if you haven’t even shown your hand and made your demands—or your polite requests (depending on your personal style).  Once you know what kind of work you find fulfilling and have identified what you really want out of your job, ask for it.  All they can say is “No.”

I know from experience…  Upon reflecting on the parts of my job that I like the most and why, I realized that I enjoy crafting a message for a specific audience and thinking up creative ways to deliver that message.  I articulated this to the people who might be able to cater to these interests (aka the Marketing and Recruitment Teams).  The outcome?  I’m writing for the Citizen Schools InspirED blog (keep reading it!); I’m managing the Campus Recruitment Twitter account to attract and retain the interest of Teaching Fellow candidates; and I’m working on creating marketing collateral showcasing professional pathways taken by Teaching Fellow Alumni.  There’s work to be done everywhere; and most people are receptive to an extra set of helping hands (and minds).  All you have to do is ask! 

 

What advice do you have for young professionals advocating for themselves on the job?

Steve Jobs and Social Entrepreneurship

Eric Schwarz – Citizen Schools Co-Founder and CEO

I’ve got an iPhone in my pocket and an iPad in my bag. Chances are our most of our Teaching Fellows have an iPod of one kind or another. But Steve Jobs’ influence goes beyond the products we love. He was someone in the for-profit sector who also inspired people working for social change.

Before I co-founded Citizen Schools, I’d been at City Year. I joined them about halfway through their first

The author started his career of social entrepreneurship at City Year

full year, and grew with them for about four years. The Mac was a relatively new computer at the time; Apple controlled maybe three or four percent of the market. But even though most people had IBMs, we at City Year studied Apple Computers a ton.

We read about how he founded Apple, was kicked out, and came back—a valuable lesson in determination.

We read about how he and his engineers came up with new ways to make the computer beautiful, intuitive and fun to use—technology working in service of the human imagination, instead of the reverse. This taught us a lot about innovation.

Innovator and influencer

But Steve Jobs did more. He changed the vector of the computer industry. He got Windows and the rest of the industry to fundamentally transform—even as his company initially only had a fairly small share of the market.

At City Year—and at Citizen Schools today—social entrepreneurs are most inspired by this aspect of Steve Jobs’ legacy. How can we change the vector of our fields?

Even if Citizen Schools works directly with only a couple percent of the turnaround schools that need us, how can we do something that’s so imaginative, so inspirational, and so effective for children and adults that it changes the way others do things? How can our work not only inspire students, but inspire communities, school districts, and the whole educational establishment—whether or not they work with us directly—to think differently?

Jobs is gone, but he leaves us more than great gadgets, and more than a great company. He leaves us a road map for how to make the world think differently.

Here at Citizen Schools, we want to inspire Americans to rethink how they do learning and how they do teaching—to create an education system that’s as beautifully designed as the iPhone in my pocket.