Sunday, October 19, 2014

A Bridge over Academic Troubles

Next Friday at midnight ends a first half-of-a-semester class for fifteen fledgling Medical Assistant students. Their next seven-week class, Health Care Customer Service, begins the following morning at 8 a.m.. That gives them, I reminded them in class yesterday, a whole eight-hours to kick back and take it easy until we meet again.

They smiled, but did not complain.

This group of students, a mix of ELL and Adult Basic Education students, are enrolled in a Career Pathways Bridge program. The Bridge is a class that offers low-level students supplemental instruction concurrent with a real-live program course. While I don't teach the content of the class, I do team teach with a state-certified Medical Assistant instructor who does do content. My job is to stay out of her way, assist when I can, and help Bridge students work on basic skills such as reading, writing, computer fundamentals, study skills and motivation. In some courses, I even teach a little math.

Low level students and English language learners struggle in a traditional classroom because they have not had the academic background of traditional college-bound students. So Bridge planners, curriculum writers, and faculty -- like me-- try to adjust the traditional schedule and give the students little extra help -- like me -- to give them the chance to be successful. Most of the time, that is all they need. My college has successfully implemented this pathway strategy in nine separate programs and dozens of courses in business, trades and health sciences. The curriculum is not changed in these courses. That is an important point. There is no difference in course competencies between a Bridge Health Care Customer Service class and traditional Health Care Customer Service class; we just help out a bit.

Fortunately, motivation is usually not a problem for Bridge students. They know that hard work and overcoming academic and personal obstacles are the pathway toward success. Their hunger for education is inspirational and reminds me of a story reported by NY Times columnist, David Brooks, some years back about a speech given by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at the Jack Kemp Foundation's Leadership Award dinner.

First a little background: Sen. Rubio's parents came from Cuba in 1956 and worked their way up to a middle class life: his mother as a maid, cashier and retail clerk; and his father as a convention banquet bartender. The night of 2012 Kemp speech, the service staff, remembering those stories, gave Sen. Rubio an honorary hotel name tag which said, "Rubio, Banquet Bartender."

Success and dreams, Sen. Rubio later told the dinner crowd while applauding the work of the service staff, "starts with our people: in the kitchens of our hotels, in the landscaping crews that work in our neighborhoods, in the late-night janitorial shifts that clean our offices. There you will find the dreams American was based on. There you will find the promise of tomorrow. Their journey is our nation's destiny. And if they can give their children what our parents gave us, the 21st-century America will be the single greatest nation that man has ever know."

For my Bridge students, their success and dreams articulated by Rubio, continues at 8 a.m. next Saturday morning. I expect to see them there early, eager and ready to work hard.

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Average White Bread Definition of Equity

I have lived a Joe Average life: an ethnic mix of German and French grandparents, Caucasian with a bit of Menominee, blue-collar from my Green Bay west-side upbringing, raised Catholic, more cousins than I can count, public school graduate, Packer fan since forever, married to one lady for many happy years, home-owner, two cars, two televisions and four computers. Just an average white bread guy, a bit puffed in the center, found on the middle shelves of any local bakery.

Thinking about this, I realize I have been living an idyllic Northeast Wisconsin version of midwestern life described in the Saturday-night narratives of Garrison Keillor. I am very fortunate to have found a comfortable place and, until recently, I had not given my ethnic, racial, economic or cultural privileges much thought. Why should I? Everywhere I looked, I saw people who looked like me and lived in a place where, as Keillor famously says, "All the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." And all our faces are white.

What could change?

During an Equity 101 session in our 2014 Fall Inservice Days, Jennifer Higgs, Green Bay Area Public School District Equity Coordinator, burst my self-satisfied bubble. She reported that people like me (that is, white) are still in the majority in the local schools, but not by much: 51-percent of public school students are white, while 49-percent are not. The mix of non-white populations is 26-percent Hispanic, 8-percent Black, 7-percent Asian, and 4-percent American Indian.

Breaking down the figures by grades shows a steady advance of students of color through the grades. In Green Bay Area elementary schools, 49-percent of the students are students of color; in middle schools, 49.5-percent; and in high schools, 43.5-percent. Compare that to the classrooms where I work: according to 2014 NWTC demographics only 12-percent of students self-report as students of color. This gap between the K-12 system and my college rosters predicts a steady increase in the number of students of color enrolling in our classrooms. Change is coming. Am I ready for it?

My college, obviously, is preparing me for the changes in the student population coming from the Green Bay Public Schools. Diversity/Inclusivity classes have been put in place in order to help everyone understand and work with the minority/majority who will be seeking our services in the coming years. And, to guide our staffing and student planning, the college drafted its own definition of "equity" this summer that asks all staff (support, faculty and leadership) to meet "all students where they are and remove barriers to student success so they can achieve course and program completion and attain a career."

In past semesters, my students have been a mix of white faces and students of color. This year, while teaching supplemental instruction in entry-level Medical Assistant and Electrical Systems classes, I find that I am one of very few white faces in the classroom. Before the Equity 101 presentation, I had not given that much thought: a student was just a student to me. Now, I wonder if that is still a valid instructional point of view?

Should I treat students of color different than I treat white students? I could be wrong, but I don't think the college is asking me to do that. What it asks is that I acknowledge that the world that these student come from is not the Wobegon-world that I have grown up in. Students of color face barriers that I know nothing about and shouldn't pretend to understand. I can't know what it is like to grow up and live in a community dominated by people different from you and your family. White pretense around diversity issues seems a little insulting to me. I think all I can do is re-double my efforts to treat each student as valued customer with unique needs, wants and abilities.

While working toward student dreams for program and career success, differences in race and ethnicity are not forgotten -- how can they be -- but can be set to one side during school time. My students, white and of color, hope for the things that every student hopes for: fairness, honesty, inspiration, knowledge, understanding, patience, rigor, professionalism and the chance to succeed. We have that bond in common if nothing else. When I look into the faces of my students, what I see are not others who are a different color than me, but a reflection of myself not that many years ago, as an aspiring student in the classroom. That, I do understand.