Self-Discovery Class Description

Latino Student Education-Tutoring & Mentoring

I. Background

Youth Discovery Inc. has spent over $700,000 from 2006 to 2012 to help educate Latino and minority youth. The Self-Discovery Class is currently being developed to be taught in 8^th through 12^th grades in order to reach our goal of reducing minority high school drop-out rates by half, and increasing the graduation rate from trade schools and universities by two to three times the current level. If current trends continue, of the 60 million Latino youth that will go through American schools between now and 2050, only 13%, or 8 million, will graduate from universities. Our goal is to see 8-10 million more of these youth obtain some form of advanced education. For more information, see Diversity Discovery 2013  (The previous name of the Self-Discovery Class) We have recently enlarged our focus to include students of all cultural backgrounds.

Youth Discovery Inc. needs volunteers to help write lesson plans for the Diversity Discovery classes and donations to pay professional educators to review these lesson plans and to prepare qualitative and quantitative statistical analysis on the performance of the classes.

The Situation:

The Latino student population in Cache Valley, Utah, and across the USA is on the rise and will approach 50% of all students within a few decades. These Latino students are vastly under-performing in essentially every measure of educational achievement, including reading levels, math levels, grades, attendance, ACT scores, dropout rate, university enrollment and graduation. Similar attitudes are true for other minorities and we think that more can be done to encourage low-motivated Caucasian youth as well.

There are many factors contributing to this under-achievement, but perhaps the greatest is the “mindset” of the Latino and minority students. They simply do not think they can achieve or excel, so “why try?” In summary:

1. The Latino and other minority student populations are exploding
2. Latinos have the highest school drop-out rate by as much as three times
3. This program is designed to keep students in school and encourage them to receive an advanced education

Main Situation leading to Drop-Outs

1. Low self-expectation or self-esteem of youth, i.e. “motivation”
2. A large achievement gap exists that discourages minorities from trying
3. Financial issues leading to discouragement
4. Knowledge of “How To” function in American higher education

Secondary Issues

1. Family and cultural issues (A program must be initiated to make the parents a part of the motivation and program
2. Subtle discrimination—just enough to make students feel “less than”
3. Lack of community support
4. Lack of educator attitudes and support

A Proven Solution

 Latinos In Action, LIA, is an innovative program developed 10 years ago in Orem, Utah, and has made great strides in raising the mindset and performance of Latino students. It trains high school students to tutor younger students, and then busses them to an elementary school where they help the younger students with homework. This helps the high school students by enhancing their self-confidence and increasing their self-expectation.

Challenges with Latinos In Action 

The two biggest hurdles faced by Latinos In Action are the cost of busing the high school students to the elementary school, and coordinating schedules between the two schools. Due to these problems,  a given high school may only offer LIA to a limited number of its students, usually one class, which is often as little as 10% of the Latino population of the high school. Finally, the LIA students have very little opportunity to learn how to navigate the American educational system since they are spending most of their school hours tutoring the elementary students..  

After School Programs

After school programs are very helpful, but for various reasons they are utilized by only a small minority of the students that need it. The biggest reason is that the Latino and minority students need to go home to babysit while their mother goes to work, or for similar reasons at home. Another reason is that by the end of the day, they have had enough of school.

The Self-Discovery Solution

Diversity Discovery is a proposed new curriculum modeled after Latinos In Action with many of the merits of LIA, but elimination of some drawbacks. The biggest difference being that the students spend 100% of their time in class, making it an affordable alternative for school districts that don’t have the funding to bus students between schools. The busing money could be spent on the FTE of the teachers teaching the class. Thus  enabling the class focuses on teaching life skills, financing college or trade schools, filling out FASFA and scholarship applications, the value of being bilingual, the importance of giving service,  the significance of their cultural heritage, pride in their unique skills and qualities, and many other pertinent topics. See a summary in the proposed Table of Contents, or the TOC Quick Summary. These subjects are mostly aimed at increasing the self-confidence and self-expectation of the students.

The current class is written specifically for Latinos, but would work for other minority or other immigrant students. (A version is envisioned for American students as well.)  A curriculum is being developed for 8th through 12th grades. After other minorities are included then a class would be developed for Caucasians. 

Self-Discovery is not trying to replace Latinos In Action, but to supplement that program where it is already in-place, and reach a wider audience elsewhere. The benefit of the Self-Discovery Class is that it will be sufficiently inexpensive for schools to offer it to all Latino and other minority students. 

Like Latinos In Action, Self-Discovery also focuses on tutoring, but instead of busing students to an elementary school, the impact will be in the student’s home.  Students are assigned to tutor/mentor a younger sibling or close relative by:

1. Helping with homework for at least 20 minutes each evening,
2. Reading to/with them each evening, or
3. If tutoring a younger relative is not possible, reading to/with their parents in English or Spanish to improve the skills of both students and parents, and increase rapport with their parents. 

Feedback from Latino students indicate that it will be difficult to do the tutoring at home. We see this as a manageable challenge, and are seeking solutions to overcome this obstacle and make it rewarding for high school students to tutor their siblings.

Some ideas for motivation and accurate reporting of time spent include:

1. Requiring a paper signed by a parent reporting the number of minutes spent tutoring each week. The parent would be part of the sign up process for the class and the school would have the parent’s signature on file. The paper could be written in the native language of the parents so they know what they are signing.
2. Requesting a report from the teacher of the sibling being tutored regarding improvement or lack of improvement of the sibling in reading or math.
3. Grading students on a combination of time spent tutoring and the measure of improvement reported by the elementary school.
4. Offering scholarships of $XXX per semester (to be used for higher education) to students who meet a given criteria in the class. 

To develop class spirit and unity, polo shirts with team logos would be provided and worn to school at least once a week.

We would like to test the program in the Cache Valley (Utah) high schools and middle schools.

To repeat, the advantages of this program are:

• Any Latino, minority, or struggling student in the school can be involved in the class, there is no GPA limit so the students who need it most can take the class.
• There is no busing cost and no coordination with elementary schools required
• Many more elementary school students can be helped by an older tutor/mentor
• The tutoring/mentoring is flexible and is a key element in students developing a new self-perception
• Students can be taught how to apply for FASFA Pell Grants and other scholarships so that the income of their parents will not inhibit them from going on to higher education
• Students develop self-respect by being part of the class and wearing the polo shirt weekly,
• High school graduation rates are expected to increase from 52% to over 80%, and college enrollment is expected to go up from about 13% to over 26% 

See the latest outline of what we think should be in the class at: www.youthdiscovery.org/ toc-for-dd-class

 II. Details of the Self-Discovery Class

This course can reverse the Drop-Out Trend

1. Raise the self-expectation and self-esteem of the youth
2. Motivate the youth to close the achievement gap themselves
3. Train youth on how to get money for college
   1. FASFA for documented students
   2. Scholarships that are available for undocumented students
   3. Scholarships for high performance in the class
4. Teach a multitude of ‘How To’ skills to excel in America

How does this course raise self-expectation of the youth?

1. The Power of Tutoring
2. Group confidence building
3. Prestige of being bilingual
4. Providing information through the curriculum
5. See the document “Enhancing Youth Self-Esteem.” As many as possible  of these principles should be included in the Self-Discovery Class. (It is included in this document as Appendix A.)

Flexibility

1. The course is divided into recommendations for 8^thto 12^thgrades
2. Teachers can switch lesson plans from grade to grade as desired and even supplement their own as needed
3. The entire course is expected to be on-line and available to teachers

Tutoring is an Eligibility Requirement

1. As students tutor others they realize that they have unique talents and value
2. Students with below grade level reading and math find out they can do the lower level material of their younger siblings, and gain confidence to catch up to their own grade level
3. The value of being bilingual becomes evident and students become proud of their unique heritage and skills
4. Self-esteem and self-expectation is raised and youth decide to stay in school
5. The act of “tutoring” develops a “mentoring” relationship and this also develops a sense of self and value

Annual Conference

1. An annual conference is suggested to be organized in each school district so that students see that they are part of a much larger whole
2. The conference is organized at the School District Level to keep the cost low
3. To be held at one of the local high schools
4. Eight to sixteen Self-Discovery Classes should be involved in each Conference
5. Some suggested Topics for the Conference are:
   1. What would you add to curriculum?
   2. What would you delete from curriculum?
   3. Round-table on Tutoring
   4. What else is needed?         

Cultural Confidence

1. You are unique. (Your personality and background strengthens America.)
2. Examples of Parents who sacrificed to bring their family here, 5 lessons. Each student interviews his parents and writes a report of their experience and then relates these to the class, 15 examples (Reports are kept confidential to protect the parents.)
3. Lessons on famous Latinos such as Cesar Chavez, and many other famous and successful American Latinos, and what can be learned from their experiences
4. Visiting lectures by Latino judges, and successful Latino businessmen, about what it took for them to be successful

Financing College

1. Scholarships (Every minority can go to college) (8^th Grade)
2. Scholarships (What scholarships can do for you.) (9^th GradLearn about scholarships (10^th Grade)
3. Learn how to apply for scholarships (10^th Grade)
4. Finding scholarships (11^th Grade)
5. Apply for scholarships (11^th Grade)
6. Apply for FASFA Pell Grants (12^th Grade)
7. You can go all the way through college on scholarships.

Preparing for college

1. Keeping up your GPA (9^th Grade)
2. Preparing for the ACT (11^th Grade)
3. Why go to College (10^th, 11^th, 12^th Grade)

Universities

Trade Schools

 III. Topics of Classes:

A. Self-Esteem Builders

1. Tutoring and Mentoring
2. Giving Service
3. Encouraging ‘Yes, you can’ ‘Si, Se Puede’
4. The Value of Being Bilingual
5. Cultural Confidence 

B. Tutoring Topics Envisioned

1. Tutoring and mentoring
2. Integrity (focused on students reporting their tutoring hours honestly)
3. Cross-Age Tutoring (From Utah Department of Education)
4. Tutoring as a mentoring scheme
5. Tutoring younger siblings
6. Tutoring parents
7. Tutoring and mentoring peer to peer
8. Being tutored and mentored
9. Mentoring in your home
10. Mentoring in your extended family
11. Mentoring in your community
12. Lessons on English and math tutoring
13. Lessons on tutoring Spanish (Or another native language)

C. Misc. Class Topics

1. Life Skills
2. Academic Roadmap
3. Financing College
4. Why Stay in School 
5. A quick summary is here: Diversity Discovery 2013 and a currently proposed Table of Contents is here.

D. Cultural Confidence

1. You are unique. (Your personality and background strengthens America.)
2. Examples of Parents who sacrificed to bring their family here, 5 lessons. Each student interviews his parents and writes a report of their experience and then relates these to the class, 15 examples
3. Lessons on famous Latinos such as Cesar Chavez, and many other famous and successful American Latinos, and what can be learned from their experiences
4. Visiting lectures by Latino judges, and successful Latino businessmen, about what it took for them to be successful.

E. Leadership Principles (These are to give the students much greater leadership ability as they go out into America)

Boy Scouts of America Scoutmaster Woodbadge Leadership Principles

Lessons 1-11 on the 11 principles of Leadership (Pre 2000 Woodbadge course)

Lessons 1-8 on the 8 principles of Leadership in the current Woodbadge course

Specific Latino Leadership styles outlined by Juana Bordas in “The Power of Latino Leadership”, 14 lessons

Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

IV. Master Curriculum for the Self-Discovery Class

Diversity Discovery Class, Major Topics Envisioned for Class

Basic Categories    Qty per grade                    Have Needed: 8th    9th     10th     11th    12th

0) Pre Class Set Up                                                0                    3          3          3          3          3

1) Set Up Class                                                       0                    5          5          2          2          2

2) Team Building                                                    16                   10        10        7         7          5

3) Tutoring and Mentoring                                       0                    20        16        14        12        12

4) Honesty, Integrity, & Reliability                           1                     3          3          3         3          3

5) Environmental Service                                        3                     3          3          3          3          3

6) What can be done about Latinos in school         0                     5          5          5          8          5

7) Teamwork                                                            2                    9            8         8          5          5

8) Communications                                                  1                     10        5          6        5          5

9) Si, Se Puede                                                        0                     10        5          10       3         3

10) Cultural Confidence                                           14                   20        20        15        15        12

11) My Family Experience                                        0                     20        15        15        15        10

12) Being Bilingual                                                    0                     10        10        10        5          10

13) Why Stay in School                                             1                     15        15        5          5          15

14) Life Skills                                                             17                   10        10        15        15        10

15) Avoiding Gangs                                                   0                     10        10        5          5          5

16) Academic Roadmap                                           15                    5          10        15        15        15

17) Scholarship/Financing College                             2                    2          2          5          15        13

18) GPA                                                                     2                    3          5          10        10        10

19) Study Habits                                                        2                     10        10        15        15        15

20) ACT Preparation                                                 0                      0          0          3          10        10

21) Latino Leadership                                               4                      0          8          0          0          0

22) 7 habits of highly effective people                      0                      0          0          5          0          0

23) Ldr, New BSA Woodbadge Course                    0                     0          0          0          5          0

24) Ldr, Old BSA Woodbadge Course                      0                     0          0          0          0          15

25) Environmental Literacy and Involvement            0                     5          5           5           5           5

TOTAL Lesson Plans: 80, Many are multiple days  80                  180      180      180      180      180

Appendix A, Forms

1. Invitation form by school administration for student to take this class
2. Sign up form by the student
3. Permission and support form by the parent
4. Permission form for non-sibling tutee
5. Weekly report form for number of hours spent tutoring
6. Forms for high school to obtain progress of elementary school student being tutored

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