Self-Discovery Class

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Self-Discovery Class 

Latino Student Education-Tutoring & Mentoring

Before reading further you may want to read the document:

Why the Self-Discovery Class?

Youth Discovery Inc has been developing programs for the last 6 years to help educate Latino and minority youth, and has spent over $700,000 on those programs. We are now developing this class to be taught in 8th through 12th grades to Latino and other minority students that we believe will reach our goal. The goal is to reduce minority drop-out rates from high school by at least 1/2, and to increase the graduation rate from trade schools and universities across the entire United States by at least 2x to 3x. (At current trends of the 60 Million Latino youth that will go through American schools between now and 2050, only 13%, or 8 Million will go to higher education. We’d like to see 16 Million to 24 Million of these youth obtain some form of advanced education.) A Power Point Summery is here: Self-Discovery 2013 

We need volunteers to help write lesson plans for the classes and we need donations so that we can pay professional educators to review 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 the USA is approaching 50% of all students, or will be in 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, etc. 

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

A Proven Solution:

An innovative program developed about 10 years ago in Orem, Utah, called Latinos In Action, LIA, has made great strides in raising the mindset and performance of Latino students. It uses high school in class training in how to tutor younger students, and then busses high school students to an elementary school where the older students help the younger with homework. This actually helps the high school student as much or more than the elementary student because it enhances the self confidence of the high school student, and greatly increases his/her self expectation. 

Challenges with Latinos In Action 

The biggest hurdle with Latinos In Action is the cost of busing the high school students to the elementary school, and coordinating schedules between the two schools. Another drawback is that, because of the busing and coordinating problems,  a given high school will provide LIA for a limited percentage of its Latino students, usually one class, which is often as little as 10% of the students. Finally, the LIA students have very little ‘in class’ time to give them specific training in ‘making it’ in the American educational system. 

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.

What We Believe is an Outstanding Solution:

“Self-Discovery” (which could be called Youth Discovery, or Latino Discovery, or Polynesian Discovery, etc.) is a proposed new in-school class that works a lot like Latinos In Action, but the students spend 100% of their time in class. The in-school portion teaches the youth about life skills, the value of their culture, how to finance college or trade school, FASFA applications, scholarship applications, their unique skills and qualities, the value of being bilingual, highlights in their heritage, giving service, and many other pertinent topics. (See a summary in the proposed Table of Contents, or the TOC Quick Summary.) The class is written specifically for Latinos, but would work for minoritie, and immigrant students.  A curriculum is being developed for all grade levels from 8th through 12th. 

We are NOT trying to replace Latinos In Action. We love LIA. LIA has many great features, especially social features, that are not provided in the Self-Discovery Class. We want the Self-Discovery Class to supplement LIA and to reach the many students for whom the school district cannot afford to provide LIA. However, the Self-Discovery Class will provide many benefits not provided by LIA, among which is that it will be sufficiently inexpensive that the middle schools and the high schools will be able to afford to offer it to ALL the Latino, Latina, and minority students who want to take it.

Tutoring:

The greatest influence of the Self-Discovery class happens at home. Instead of bussing students to an elementary school, the older students are assigned to tutor/mentor their younger siblings, or close relationship children near their home, by:

  1. Helping them with their homework for at least 20 minutes per evening,
  2. Reading English or Spanish (or their own native language) to/with them each evening, or
  3. Students read to/with their parents in English or Spanish, to improve the English and Spanish skills of both students and parents, and increase rapport with their parents. 

Students who do not have younger siblings can work with children that are closely related such as cousins or nephews/nieces supervised by the relationship’s  parent, tutoring parents, or they can be tutored by older or university students, etc. A large part of the grade is based on the number of minutes per week spent in reading and tutoring. 

Feedback we’ve received from Latino students is that it will be difficult to get the high school students to do the tutoring at home. We see this only as a challenge, and hope you will help us with ideas to overcome this obstacle and make it rewarding for the high school student to tutor his/her siblings. Some ideas for motivation and accurate reporting of time spent include:

  1. Have the student turn in a paper slip each week listing the number of minutes spent tutoring, and have it signed by the parent. (The parent would be part of the sign up process for the class and the school would have the parents signature on file.) The paper slip could be written in the native language of the parent so the parent know what they are signing.
  2. Have the middle school or high school coordinate with the elementary school of the sibling that is being tutored, and have the elementary school report the improvement, or non improvement, of the sibling in reading or math.
  3. The older students grade in the class would be heavily dependent on the minutes spent tutoring, and the measure of improvement reported by the elementary school.
  4. For additional motivation, a scholarship of perhaps $250 per semester (to be used at a school of higher education of his/her choice) could be awarded to each student who meet a given criteria in the class.

Other   

To develop class spirit the students would have an inexpensive polo shirt with their own logo silkscreened onto it, and they would wear it to school once, or more often, per week 

We would like to test the program in the 3 Cache Valley (Utah) High Schools and all the Cache Valley middle schools. 

To repeat, the advantages of this program are:

  • ALL Latinos and other minorities, and struggling Anglos, in the school can be involved in the class,
  • There is no busing cost and no coordination with elementary schools required,
  • Nearly all elementary school students, and younger children, can now have an older tutor/mentor,
  • The tutoring/mentoring is flexible and is a key element in developing a new self perception of the student,
  • All students can be trained to apply for FASFA Pell Grants, and nearly all students can be trained to obtain other available scholarships to go to higher education beyond high school, and thus the income of their parents will not inhibit them from going on to school,
  • Students develop self respect by being part of the class and wearing the polo shirt weekly,
  • We expect to see the high school retention rate increase from 52% to over 80%, and the college graduation rate go up from about 13% to between 26% and 39%. 

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

Detailed Outline (Review and Summary of Above) 

  1. Introduction

Situation

  1. The Latino and other minority Student Population are Exploding
  2. Latinos have the highest school drop-out rate by as much as three (3) times
  3. This program is designed to keep students in school and encourage them to go on to 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. Money issues
  4. Knowledge of “How To”

Secondary Issues

  1. Family and Cultural Issues
  2. Subtle Discrimination—Just enough to make students feel “less than”
  3. Community Support
  4. Educator Attitudes and Support

This course can reverse the Drop-Out Trend

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

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

Flexibility

  1. This course is divided into recommendations for 8thto 12thgrades
  2. Teachers can switch lesson plans from grade to grade as desired and even supplement their own as needed.

Tutoring is an Eligibility Requirement

  1. As a student tutors others he/she realizes that they have unique talents and value
  2. Students with below grade level reading and math find out they can do 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 skill
  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. It is recommended that an annual conference is organized in each school district so that each student sees that he/she is part of a much larger whole.
  2. The conference is organized at the School District Level to keep the cost low
  3. Held at one of the local high schools
  4. About eight to sixteen classes (max) involved in each Conference
  5. Some suggested Topics for the Conference
  6. What would you add to curriculum?
  7. What would you delete from curriculum?
  8. Roundtable on Tutoring          
  9. Self-Esteem Builders

Tutoring and Mentoring

Giving Service

Encouraging ‘Yes, you can’ ‘Si, Se Puede’

The Value of Being Bilingual

Cultural Confidence 

III. Class Curriculum Topics

Team Builders

Life Skills

Academic Roadmap

Financing College

Why Stay in School 

A quick summary is here: Self-Discovery 2013 and a currently proposed Table of Contents is here.

  1. From the Table of Contents, Some Specific Topics Envisioned:
  2. Tutoring and Mentoring

Lessons on Integrity focused on students reporting their Tutoring hours honestly

Cross Age Tutoring (From Utah Department of Education)

Tutoring as a mentoring scheme

Tutoring younger siblings

Tutoring parents

Tutoring and mentoring peer to peer

Being tutored and mentored

Mentoring in your home

Mentoring in your extended family

Mentoring in your community

Lessons on English and Math Tutoring

Lessons on tutoring Spanish (Or another native language.)

Leadership Principles

Boy Scouts of America Scoutmaster Woodbadge Leadership Principles

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

Getting and Giving Information

Understanding Group Needs and Characteristics

Knowing and Understanding Group Resources

Controlling the Group

Counseling

Setting the Example

Representing the Group

Planning

Evaluation

Sharing Leadership

Manager of Learning

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

Leading Change

Problem Solving

Valuing People

Leveraging Diversity

Managing Conflict

Coaching and Mentoring

Forming/storming/norming/performing

Ethics in Action

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

Leading Latino Style

Ancient Roots and Mestizo Ancestry

The Latino Legacy in the United States

Personalismo: The Character of the Leader

Conciencia: Knowing Oneself and Cultivating Personal Awareness

Destino: Personal and Collective Purpose

La Cultura: Culturally Based Leadership

De Colores: Inclusiveness and Diversity

Juntos: Collective Community Stewardship

¡ Adalante! Global Vision and Immigration Spirit

Si Se Puede: Social Activism and Coalition Leadership

Gozar le Vida: Ledership0 That Celebrate Life!

Fe Y Esperanza: Sustained by Faith and Hope

Building a Diverse and Humanistic Society

Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Cultural Confidence

You are unique. (Your personality and background strengthens America.)

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

Lessons on famous Latinos such as Cesar Chavez, and many other famous and successful American Latinos, and what can be learned from their experiences

Visiting lectures by Latino judges, and successful Latino businessmen, about what it took for them to be successful

Financing College

Scholarships (Every minority can go to college) (8th Grade)

Scholarships (What scholarships can do for you.) (9th Grade)

Learn about scholarships (10th Grade)

Learn how to apply for scholarships (10th Grade)

Finding scholarships (11th Grade)

Apply for scholarships (11th Grade)

Apply for FASFA Pell Grants (12th Grade)

You can go all the way through college on scholarships.

Preparing for college

Keeping up your GPA (9th Grade)

Preparing for the ACT (11th Grade)

Why go to College (10th, 11th, 12th Grade)

Universities

Trade schools

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License given at no charge, upon request, for local implementation

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