YAKIMA, Wash. – Este es el Día Nacional del Aprendizaje de Verano, un homenaje anual a los programas y la gente que tratan de evitar que los niños se retrasen en sus habilidades de matemáticas y lectura durante las vacaciones escolares. En Yakima, un programa está sacando a los niños al aire libre para lograr que el aprendizaje resulte divertido.
El Día Nacional del Aprendizaje de Verano se concentra en formas creativas de evitar la fuga de cerebros durante el receso escolar. La frase “úsala o piérdela” se aplica a las habilidades de los pequeños en matemáticas y lectura, las cuales dicen los investigadores que resultan sensiblemente desgastadas cuando no están en la escuela.
Una reciente encuesta aplicada a más de mil padres de familia encontró que seis de cada diez no están convencidos de tal cosa, y la mitad manifestó que sus hijos pasan más del doble de tiempo en el internet o viendo televisión, que leyendo libros. Sarah Pitcock, CEO de la National Summer Learning Association (Asociación Nacional de Aprendizaje de Verano), afirma que navegar en internet podrá involucrar lecturas, pero simplemente no es igual.
“Y andas brincando por todos lados, yendo de sitio en sitio, de un artículo al otro con un simple golpecito del dedo. Los libros son realmente magníficos para darnos algo de ese tipo de longevidad y continuidad de la lectura, que a los estudiantes de veras les permite concentrarse.”
Agrega que la lectura extensa es mejor para estructurar la comprensión. En el estudio, del grupo “Reading Is Fundamental” (Leer es Fundamental), el 83 por ciento de los padres dijeron que cuando sus hijos tienen el hábito de la lectura, siguen prefiriendo los libros a las tabletas o los libros digitales.
En Yakima, este año el tema del aprendizaje de verano es “Outdoor Adventure” (Aventura al Aire Libre), desde caminatas en la naturaleza hasta cocinar en fogatas y hacer campamentos. Los niños aplican las matemáticas en las recetas y para calcular las distancias en los mapas, e investigan las plantas y los animales que encuentran al mismo tiempo que se divierten. También han deducido el papel que puede jugar la tecnología, como explica la coordinadora del programa en el Northwest Community Action Center (Centro Northwest de Acción Comunitaria), Melanie Willis.
“Ponerlos a tomar fotos o audios de lo que hacen, a grabar videos, a editar su trabajo –así que los llevas fuera, luego lo regresas al salón de clases, y ellos realmente disfrutan tener esa tecnología en su mano.”
Pitcock afirma que los mejores programas de verano permiten a los niños elegir un tema en el que estén interesados y buscar el aprendizaje sobre él, reforzando en el camino destrezas como la lectura y matemáticas. Pero agrega que incluso las semanas que pasan en casa no son tiempo perdido para los padres que fomentan la lectura en sus hijos.
“Solamente leer un libro no es algo tan poderoso como leer un libro y tener con quién comentarlo. Y los padres pueden jugar un papel crítico en la comprensión de la lectura, que retribuye en términos de una mayor habilidad para leer.”
Este año, muchos de los eventos del National Summer Learning Day (Día Nacional del Aprendizaje de Verano) destacan la necesidad de que existan apoyos y programas para alumnos de “mid-school” y de “high-school”.
La encuesta RIF está en scribd.com.
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It's estimated that nearly half of all schools in the country don't have enough teachers. To help change that, the University of Texas in El Paso offers a residency program to help ensure that first-time teachers succeed.
The "Miner Teacher Residency" gives students in the College of Education an opportunity to work in elementary and middle schools alongside working teachers.
Clifton Tanabe, dean of the UTEP College of Education, was part of a recent national roundtable discussion on ways to solve the teacher shortage, and said the program gives future educators the skills they need to be ready for their first day of class.
"A third grader in a first-year teacher's classroom is only going to get to do third grade once, but that teacher will be able to do the third grade again and again," he explained. "So, we want them ready for that first group of third graders that they take on."
Tanabe added nearly half of the students enrolled in the program are first-generation college students and 70% are bilingual. He adds that mirrors the population of students in the public school system in El Paso, where 90% of the students are Hispanic. Most of the new teachers remain in the area, he said.
Many school districts have been forced to leave positions open, or fill them with teachers who are not fully certified. Some rural Texas districts have gone to a four-day school week. And some teachers are leaving the profession, citing increased workloads, low pay and concerns about safety.
According to Tanabe, teacher retention is directly related to being successful in the first two years on the job - and the UT program addresses this.
"So, folks who graduate from our residency model in their first and second years in teaching are set up with an instructional coach who's from the university, from the College of Education, to work with them on individualized instructional improvement," he continued.
The residency program is in its sixth year. It currently has 62 teachers working in five different school districts in the El Paso area.
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Ohio's Black students are more likely to face excessively harsh discipline practices such as expulsion and suspension, according to a recently released report from the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio.
The data show out-of-school suspensions and expulsions rose in every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade in the 2022-23 school year, compared with the previous academic year.
John Standford, state director for the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio, said economically disadvantaged students comprised 83% of all out-of-school suspensions.
"School districts really have to pay closer attention to the data and really screen the data, review the data, on a regular basis to really begin to address the issues of inequities," Standford urged.
Last year saw 174,000 cases of total suspension or expulsion among low-income students compared to 35,000 cases among students who do not qualify as economically disadvantaged. According to the report, Black females in Ohio were six times more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions than their white female peers. Black males were also more than four times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white male peers.
Kim Eckhart, research manager for the fund, said she understands the difficulties teachers face. She hopes the report encourages districts across the state to support schools with the resources and time needed to address behavioral problems restoratively.
"We need schools to be supporting teachers with additional time and space," Eckhart contended. "So that there is capacity to address these things, rather than just kicking the student out of the class, kicking them out of the school."
School discipline practices are also linked to Ohio's alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rates. According to the report, missing as little as two days of school per month can lead to chronic absence. More than 26% of Ohio students -- more than 400,000 children -- were chronically absent from school in the 2022-2023 school year, up by nearly half from the 2018-19 school year.
Disclosure: The Children's Defense Fund of Ohio/KIDS COUNT contributes to our fund for reporting on Children's Issues, Education, Health Issues, and Hunger/Food/Nutrition. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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Idaho lawmakers are considering a measure that would eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses.
Critics say it could keep potential students from attending school in the state. Senate Bill 1357 would prohibit the use of state funds for DEI, and DEI offices from operating at colleges and universities.
Nick Koenig is a PhD student in geography at the University of Idaho.
"These positions that are trying to be taken away from this bill are specifically to foster student success on campus," said Koenig, "not just for students from marginalized groups but also just the totality of the campus community."
Lawmakers supporting the bill say eliminating DEI programs would save the state more than $3 million.
But Koenig said the consequences of eliminating these positions will have ripple effects. He said he spoke with the LGBTQ office at the University of Idaho before deciding to attend.
"The person I originally chatted with before coming to this university," said Koenig, "if her position was just not there, I would not have come to this university at all."
Koenig said the legislation would also make it hard to recruit people to colleges and universities in Idaho.
"People go to school say that they can see themselves as COOs or as teachers or as sociologists or as geographers, like in my case," said Koenig, "and if I saw that they're actively trying to remove me as a queer person from the state then, yeah, why would I want to spend four years in a state that wants to remove me as a person?"
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
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