Free E-Book Teaches Black Males How To Become Head Of House, Community, And Nation

--Free E-book is manual for boys raised in single mother households--

In honor of the 17^th Anniversary of the Million Man March, speaker and trainer, H.A. Jabar will be giving away his E-Book, A Well Made Man: Building The Temple Of Self, Volume 1, for free at his website hajabar.com. The book compares the process of building a building, to the process of building a man. It instructs males on how to draw a blueprint for their life, dig a financial foundation, and erect a mighty structure supported by seven characteristics and seven principles.

The former amateur wrestling standout and Arizona State University graduate, H.A. Jabar, has turned in his wrestling shoes and singlet for a pen, pad, and microphone. The wrestler turned speaker and trainer was inspired by a speech titled ‘A Well Made Man’ given by Thaddeus Muhammad. The speech detailed the story of a man that appeared to Mary, the mother of Jesus. H.A. Jabar expands on the subject matter by comparing the process of building a building, to the process of building a man. He details nine areas of focus that a man must become proficient in, to take his rightful place in society.

A Well Made Man: Building The Temple Of Self, Volume 1 is written as a manual and guide with a variety of references for readers to further their study. It is written to serves as a tool in a young man’s tool box, to assist him in increasing the speed of maturation. It is to help propel boys into manhood.

With the increasing rate of boys raised in single mother households without the presence of strong male role models, A Well Made Man: Building The Temple Of Self, Volume 1  teaches young men about specific areas of life that they must focus on to become well-made men. It is a guide that details what it takes for a man to except his duty and become the head of his household, community, and nation.

The free E-Book will be released on October 14^th, 2012- the 17^th Anniversary of the Million Man March, The Holy Day of Atonement. The theme of the book is in harmony with the spirit and purpose of the march; atonement, reconciliation, and responsibility.  The theme was for men to atone to God for their shortcomings as men, husbands, and fathers; to demonstrate their willingness to reconcile differences at home, school, church, in organizations, and in the society in general; and to demonstrate their willingness to accept responsibility to change their behavior and to strive to make their communities a more decent place to live.

A Well Made Man: Building The Temple Of Self, Volume 1 is a guide that will help men to learn the characteristics , principles, and areas  of focus necessary to become responsible citizens. It can be downloaded for free at hajabar.com.

Before a Test, a Poverty of Words

Before a Test, a Poverty of Words

Not too long ago, I witnessed a child, about two months shy of 3, welcome the return of some furniture to his family’s apartment with the enthusiastic declaration “Ottoman is back!”  The child understood that the stout cylindrical object from which he liked to jump had a name and that its absence had been caused by a visit to someone called “an upholsterer.” The upholsterer, he realized, was responsible for converting the ottoman from one color or texture to another. Here was a child whose mother had prepared him, at the very least, for a future of reading World of Interiors.

PREP Simone Brown helping a student at Intermediate School 292 in Brooklyn prepare for the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, the subject of a recent lawsuit.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

Published: October 5, 2012

Though conceivably much more as well. Despite the Manhattan parody to which a scene like this so easily gives rise, it is difficult to overstate the advantages arrogated to a child whose parent proceeds in a near constant mode of annotation. Reflexively, the affluent, ambitious parent is always talking, pointing out, explaining: Mommy is looking for her laptop; let’s put on your rain boots; that’s a pigeon, a sand dune, skyscraper, a pomegranate. The child, in essence, exists in continuous receipt of dictation.

Things are very different elsewhere on the class spectrum. Earlier in the year when I met Steven F. Wilson, founder of a network of charter schools that serve poor and largely black communities in Brooklyn, I asked him what he considered the greatest challenge on the first day of kindergarten each year. He answered, without a second’s hesitation: “Word deficit.” As it happens, in the ’80s, the psychologists Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley spent years cataloging the number of words spoken to young children in dozens of families from different socioeconomic groups, and what they found was not only a disparity in the complexity of words used, but also astonishing differences in sheer number. Children of professionals were, on average, exposed to approximately 1,500 more words hourly than children growing up in poverty. This resulted in a gap of more than 32 million words by the time the children reached the age of 4.

This issue, though seemingly crucial, has been obscured in the recently intensified debate over the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, the multiple-choice exam used as the sole metric for entrance into some of New York City’s elite public high schools, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

Thousands of students in the city are in the throes of preparing for the test to be administered the last weekend of this month. Two weeks ago, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, along with other organizations, filed a federal civil rights complaint challenging the single-score admissions process as perilously narrow and arguing that it negatively affected black and Hispanic children, who are grossly underrepresented in these schools, so long considered forceful agents of mobility.

As the complaint makes note, of the 967 eighth-grade students offered admission to Stuyvesant for the current school year, only 19 were black and 32 Hispanic. During the previous school year, only 3.5 percent of students at Bronx Science were black and 7.2 percent Hispanic. At Staten Island Tech, the figures were even lower. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg quickly defended the process, contending that it was so free of subjectivity that it must, inherently be regarded as fair.

Others called the system Darwinian. The Education Department, required by state law to rely exclusively on the test, volunteered defensively that it offered free exam preparation to low-income students. The fact that so many children of means take costly tutorials to ready themselves for testing has always been a matter of concern to anyone hoping to see the racial imbalances redressed.

And yet, all of this focus on the test — which examines reading comprehension, math skills, the ability to reason logically — suggests a myopia of its own. Expanding the ranks of poor black and Hispanic children in the top high schools would seem to require infinitely more backtracking. Consider that Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Brooklyn, one of the major pipelines to top public high schools, last year had a student population that was 0.52 percent black.

As the education theorist E. D. Hirsch recently wrote in a review of Paul Tough’s new book, “How Children Succeed,” there is strong evidence that increasing the general knowledge and vocabulary of a child before age 6 is the single highest correlate with later success. Schools have an enormously hard time pushing through the deficiencies with which many children arrive.

According to state education data, a far higher percentage of children in New York City charter and district schools in grades three through eight score at the highest level (a four) in math than they do in what is known as English Language Arts. In the 2011-12 school year, only 3.2 percent of children in district schools scored at the four level on the end-of-year statewide English exam. (For charter schools, the figure was 1.9 percent.)

All of this would seem to argue for a system in which we spent ever more of our energies and money on early, preschool education rather than less. The city has taken the right direction with the announcement of a new preschool in Brownsville, Brooklyn, scheduled to open next year, that will start with children as young as 6 weeks old. But that’s one program in a city where 7,500 children reached kindergarten this year without preschool preparation. Obviously we want equal opportunity; we also want children to know what words like “equal” and “opportunity” mean.

E-mail: bigcity@nytimes.com

African American youth invents surgical technique at age 14

By Taki S. Raton


“Tony Hansberry II isn’t waiting to finish medical school to contribute to improved medical care. He has already developed a stitching technique that can be used to reduce surgical complications, as well as the chance of error among less experienced surgeons,” writes Jackie Jones in BlackAmericaWeb.com on June 16, 2009.
 “The project I did was basically the comparison of novel laparoscopic instruments in doing a hysterectomy repair,” reveals Hansberry.
At the time, Hansberry was a high school freshman at the Darnell-Cookman Middle/High School of the Medical Arts in Jacksonville, Florida, a special medical magnet school that allows its students to take advanced classes in medicine. Informational documents cite that students at the school are able to master suturing in eighth grade. Suturing is the surgical stitching of a wound.
The son of a registered nurse and an African Methodist Episcopal church pastor, the Darnell-Cookman student said that “I just want to help people and be respected, knowing that I can save lives.” His goal is to become a neurosurgeon.
Jones reports that the idea for his unique procedure was conceived during the summer of 2008 while enrolled as an intern at the University of Florida ’s Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research at Shands Hospital in Jacksonville.
It was noted that Hansberry responded to a challenge to improve a procedure called the “endo stitch” used in hysterectomies that could not be clamped down properly to close the tube where the patient’s uterus had been. Using a medical dummy, the 14-year-old devised a vertical way to apply the endo stitch, completing the stitching in a third of the time of traditional surgery.
“It took me a day or two to come up with the concept,” Hansberry said in the Jones interview.
He was supervised by urogynecologist Dr. Brent Siebel and Bruce Nappi, administrative director of the Center for Simulation Education and Safety Research. Hansberry’s accomplishment, it is reported, won second place in the medical category regional science fair in February 2009.
“Education experts say that youngsters as young as 10 can experience great achievement at an early age if their thirst for knowledge is encouraged and they are given opportunities to shadow professionals and get internships,” as quoted by Jones.
In April of 2009, Hansberry presented his findings at a medical conference at the University of Florida before an audience of doctors and board-certified surgeons. Medical lead teacher Angela Tenbroeck is quoted noting that in many ways, Hansberry is a typical student, but that he is way ahead of his classmates when it comes to surgical skills.
“I would put him up against a first-year med student. He’s an outstanding young man and I am proud to have him representing us,” she says. As an 11th- grader at the age of 16, the January 25, 2011 Jacksonville.com blog reports that Hansberry was one of nine youth who were selected to travel to Washington that February to present the Boy Scouts of America Report to the Nation to President Barack Obama.
District director for the Boy Scouts of America Lawrence Norman in the Jacksonville report said that when district leaders were asked to recommend an exemplary Scout, “Tony’s name kept coming up.”
Hansberry was also introduced at the annual meeting of the North Florida Council of The Boy Scouts at the University of North Florida on January 25, 2011.
According to Jacksonville writer Justin Sacharoff, the Boy Scouts of America Report to the Nation features the year’s achievements including national service, conservation, healthy living and community involvement.
The Darnell-Cookman Middle/ High School of the Medical Arts is a school within the Duval County Public Schools system in Jacksonville. It is a National Blue Ribbon School and also an “A” school in the State of Florida school grading system.
The school had its beginnings nearly 200 years ago when Methodist minister Reverend S.B. Darnell moved to Jacksonville to serve as pastor of Ebenezer Methodist- Episcopal Church. In the late 1800s, he founded the Cookman Institute. It was the first school of higher education for African Americans in the state of Florida specializing in the religious and academic preparation of teachers.
Under the leadership of Darnell, the school served thousands of young Black men and women until it was destroyed in the Great Jacksonville Fire of 1901. The Reverend Alfred Cookman, a close friend of Reverend Darnell, helped raise the money to rebuild the school. Today, Darnell-Cookman School of the Medical Arts has an enrollment upwards of 1,100 students in grades 6-12. The first graduating class will receive their diplomas in the spring of 2012.
This “Young, Gifted and Black” series is proud to present its first writing during this 2012 February Black History Month by sharing the exemplary modeled accomplishment of Tony Hansberry II. But in reality, Hansberry’s achievement historically in our communities is really not unusual or extraordinary for our African American students when they are taught, groomed and culturally inspired in an academically supportive instructional environment unique to how we learn, grow, and develop mentally, socially, emotionally, and even psychologically as Black youth in today’s challenging diverse society.
And added to this point in his words, our young neurosurgeon to be says that, “It’s not really hard if you have a passion for it.”

Tenured Professor Departs Stanford University for an Online Start-Up

Tenured Professor Departs Stanford U., Hoping to Teach 500,000 Students at Online Start-Up

January 23, 2012, 4:53 pm

By Nick DeSantis

The Stanford University professor who taught an online artificial intelligence course to more than 160,000 students has abandoned his tenured position to aim for an even bigger audience.
Sebastian Thrun, a professor of computer science at Stanford, revealed today that he has departed the institution to found Udacity, a start-up offering low-cost online classes. He made the surprising announcement during a presentation at the Digital – Life – Design conference in Munich, Germany. The development was first reported earlier today by Reuters.
During his talk, Mr. Thrun explored the origins of his popular online course at Stanford, which initially featured videos produced with nothing more than “a camera, a pen and a napkin.” Despite the low production quality, many of the 200 Stanford students taking the course in the classroom flocked to the videos because they could absorb the lectures at their own pace. Eventually, the 200 students taking the course in person dwindled to a group of 30. Meanwhile, the course’s popularity exploded online, drawing students from around the world. The experience taught the professor that he could craft a course with the interactive tools of the Web that recreated the intimacy of one-on-one tutoring, he said.
Mr. Thrun told the crowd his move was motivated in part by teaching practices that evolved too slowly to be effective. During the era when universities were born, “the lecture was the most effective way to convey information. We had the industrialization, we had the invention of celluloid, of digitial media, and, miraculously, professors today teach exactly the same way they taught a thousand years ago,” he said.
He concluded by telling the crowd that he couldn’t continue teaching in a traditional setting. “Having done this, I can’t teach at Stanford again,” he said.
One of Udacity’s first offerings will be a seven-week course called “Building a Search Engine.” It will be taught by David Evans, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Virginia and a Udacity partner. Mr. Thrun said it is designed to teach students with no prior programming experience how to build a search engine like Google. He hopes 500,000 students will enroll.
Teaching the course at Stanford, Mr. Thrun said, showed him the potential of digital education, which turned out to be a drug that he could not ignore.
“I feel like there’s a red pill and a blue pill,” he said. “And you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I’ve taken the red pill, and I’ve seen Wonderland.”

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Three Black Males Defy Odds and Become Chess Masters at 12 and 13

Masters of the Game and Leaders by Example

Richard Perry/The New York Times

From left, James Black Jr., Justus Williams and Joshua Colas competing in Manhattan last month. Their success is a “phenomenon,” one veteran player said.

By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN

Published: November 12, 2011

Fewer than 2 percent of the 77,000 members of the United States Chess Federation are masters — and just 13 of them are under the age of 14.

Among that select group of prodigies are three black players from the New York City area — Justus Williams, Joshua Colas and James Black Jr. — who each became masters before their 13th birthdays.

“Masters don’t happen every day, and African-American masters who are 12 never happen,” said Maurice Ashley, 45, the only African-American to earn the top title of grandmaster. “To have three young players do what they have done is something of an amazing curiosity. You normally wouldn’t get something like that in any city of any race.”
The chess federation, the game’s governing body, does not keep records on the ethnicity of its members. But a Web site called the Chess Drum — which chronicles the achievements of black chess players and is run by Daaim Shabazz, an associate professor of business at Florida A&M University — lists 85 African-American masters. Shabazz said many of them no longer compete regularly.
Ashley, who became a master at age 20 and a grandmaster 14 years later, said the rarity was not surprising. “Chess just isn’t that big in the African-American community,” he said.
The chess federation uses a rating system to measure ability based on the results of matches in officially sanctioned events; a player must reach a rating of 2,200 to qualify for master.
In September last year, Justus, who is now 13 and lives in the Bronx, was the first of the three boys to get to 2,200, becoming the youngest black player to obtain the master rank. Joshua, 13, of White Plains, was a few months younger than Justus when he became a master last December. James, 12, of Brooklyn, became a master in July.
(Samuel Sevian of Santa Clara, Calif., is the youngest master in United States history, earning the title last December, 20 days before his 10th birthday.)
The three New Yorkers met several years ago during competitions. Justus has an edge over James, mostly because he won many of their early games, before James caught up. Head to head, James and Joshua each have several wins against the other. Justus and Joshua have rarely competed against each other.
Although they are rivals, the boys are also friends and share a sense that they are role models.
“I think of Justus, me and Josh as pioneers for African-American kids who want to take up chess,” James said.
James’s father, James Black, said he and Justus’s and Joshua’s parents were aware of what their sons represent and “talk about it a great deal,” but tried not to pressure them too much.
Black said his son “knows that the pressure comes along with the territory. What is going to happen is going to happen. As long he plays, we’re sure that things will work out for the best.”
The three boys approach the game differently. Justus and Joshua say that James studies the most, and Joshua admits he would rather play than practice. “I like the competition,” he said. “And I like that chess is an art.”
Justus said he is the most aggressive of the three, and he and James agree that Joshua is the most unpredictable. “Joshua likes to change up his openings during tournaments,” Justus said.
Supporting the boys’ interest is not easy financially. Though there are many tournaments in the New York City area, the boys must travel to play in more prestigious competitions, sometimes overseas. This week, they are set to play in the World Youth Chess Championship in Brazil.
They study the game with professional coaches who are grandmasters. The lessons are expensive — $100 an hour is not unusual — and the boys’ families have either found sponsors or have paid for the instruction themselves.
The boys aspire to be a grandmaster by the time they graduate from high school, something that only a few dozen players in the world have done. Ashley, who has met the boys but does not know any of them well, says the obstacles are substantial.
He said several children that he had coached to the junior high school national championships in the early 1990s went on to enroll at elite colleges and then to have successful careers. Along the way, he said, playing chess became less of a priority for them. It is difficult to make a living as a player, he said, adding, “I’ve seen many talented kids go by the wayside.”
Ashley said he could not predict whether the success of Justus, Joshua and James would encourage other young African-Americans to play. Another black teenager, Jehron Bryant, 15, of Valley Stream, N.Y., became a master in September.
“Masters will never be epidemics,” Ashley said. He said the rise of the young masters was a “phenomenon” that was “ worth noting.”
“It is special,” he said, “and that we know for a fact.”
Justus, Joshua and James all played in the Marshall Chess Club Championship in Manhattan last month. Justus and Joshua finished with disappointing results — a common problem for young players, who often lack consistency. But James tied for fifth. In the last round, he beat Yefim Treger, a strong veteran master who is in his 50s.
Treger is a tough opponent because he uses unorthodox openings. James kept his head, however, patiently seizing space and building up his attack until he was able to force through a passed pawn. He wrapped up the game by cornering and checkmating Treger’s king.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan Says Failing Schools Could Rise to 82%

Washington (CNN) -- Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday his department estimates that four out of five schools in the United States will not make their "No Child Left Behind" benchmarks by the law's target year of 2014 -- and when the test scores are counted for the current school year, numbers could show that U.S. schools are already at that failure rate.
He blamed that failure rate on the law itself, not on schools.
"This law has created dozens of ways for schools to fail and very few ways to help them succeed. We should get out of the business of labeling schools as failures and create a new law that is fair and flexible, and focused on the schools and students most at risk," Duncan told the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Under the No Child Left Behind law, originally passed in 2001, all students are expected to meet a level of "proficiency" by 2014. Because standards under No Child Left Behind are higher from year to year as 2014 approaches, the percentage of schools that are not meeting "Adequate Yearly Progress" could rise from the current level of 37% to 82%, Duncan said.
Duncan pointed out that federal law requires states and districts to "implement the same set of interventions in every school that is not meeting AYP, regardless of the individual needs and circumstances of those schools."
Under the Education Department's estimates, 82% of America's schools "could be labeled 'failing' and, over time, the required remedies for all of them are the same -- which means we will really fail to serve the students in greatest need," said Duncan.
"By mandating and prescribing one-size-fits-all solutions, No Child Left Behind took away the ability of local and state educators to tailor solutions to the unique needs of their students," Duncan said calling the concept "fundamentally flawed."
Duncan was on Capitol Hill to both push for the reauthorization and revamping of the No Child Left Behind law, and to defend President Barack Obama's budget request for 2012.
The 2012 budget request comes to $77.4 billion -- an increase of $4.5 billion over the 2011 request.
Republicans on the committee questioned any increase in the budget in the current economic climate.
Committee chairman Rep. John Kline, R-Minnesota, said in his opening remarks, "As we work to answer the question about the appropriate role for the federal government in education, one thing is for sure: it must be less costly and less intrusive."
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, asked the secretary if he though he could be successful without an increase in funding saying, "If you cut the right way and put the money into the systems that you know work, could you do that?"

The education secretary answered, "We have to do that, anyway, and I continue to think we under-invest" compared to higher-performing countries.

Students say high school is not preparing them for the real world!

WASHINGTON — Young adults say high schools are failing to give students a solid footing for the working world or strong guidance toward college, at a time when many fear graduation means tumbling into an economic black hole. Students who make it to college are happy with the education they get there, an Associated Press-Viacom poll says.
Most of the 18- to 24-year-olds surveyed gave high schools low grades for things that would ease the way to college: A majority say their school wasn’t good at helping them choose a field of study, aiding them in finding the right college or vocational school or assisting them in coming up with ways to pay for more schooling.

If schools did these things better, it could make a significant difference, because young people already are enthusiastic about higher education. Two-thirds say students should aim for college, even if they aren’t sure yet what career they want to pursue. Almost as many say they want to get at least a four-year degree themselves.
The majority of high school students probably won’t end up with a college degree, however. Among those a few years ahead of them — today’s 25- to 34-year-olds — only about a third hold a bachelor’s or higher degree, according to the Census Bureau. Less than 10 percent get an associate’s degree.
So getting students ready for work remains central to high schools’ mission. And most young people say their school didn’t do a good job of preparing them for work or helping them choose a future career. They also give high schools low marks on exposing them to the latest technology in their field and helping them get work experience, according to the poll conducted in partnership with Stanford University.
Learning real-life job skills is important to students such as Mary Margaret Rice, 18, who likes her regional vocational high school in Wakefield, Mass. “I’m getting training to weld,” she said.
Rice is interested in joining the military, but not in more schooling after graduation. “Money is a reason,” she said, “but the main reason is I can’t really focus on classwork and homework.”
Overall, only 4 in 10 young people voice strong satisfaction with their high school education. About as many are “somewhat satisfied.” Almost a fifth are unsatisfied — twice as many as expressed unhappiness with college.
Lovina Dill says she wishes the two high schools she attended in California had taught her how to deal with the ups and downs of the real world. She could have used a class in “what happens if you can’t get a job, and the unemployment rate rises and nobody can find a job.” Dill said she was briefly homeless when she was laid off and unable to find a job using her certification in massage therapy.
Dill, now 21, self-employed and living with her father in Arcadia, La., thinks high schools should offer juniors and seniors workshops on how to get a job, how to build a career and the many educational options besides a four-year degree.
The one category where young people rated high schools best was preparing them for further education: 56 percent say their school did a good or excellent job at that. Those who went on to college or trade school gave their high schools better marks than those who didn’t.
The bulk of college students — 6 in 10 — declare themselves either “very” or “extremely” pleased with their higher education.
Most say a career-focused college education is a high priority, and students feel their schools are providing it. A strong majority of students and recent grads give their college high marks for preparing them for the work force, helping them choose a field of study, exposing them to the latest technology and helping them get internships.
Six in 10 even say their college was “excellent” or “good” at helping them find money to pay for their education.
Young adults’ opinions are mixed on whether the nation’s education system understands their goals and values. Almost half of college attendees feel that the schools “get” them. That’s significantly more than among those whose education stopped at high school; just 3 in 10 say the school system could identify with them.
Young people credit their own ambition and abilities most for their progress in life, followed by parents, family and friends. But beyond that tight-knit circle, teachers are the heroes, with 4 in 10 saying high school teachers helped a lot. College teachers earn similar praise.
High school and college counselors are a step behind. Most students give them some credit, but less than one-fourth say their counselors were a lot of help, and about 3 in 10 think they didn’t help at all.
Nonwhite students were more likely than whites to say their high school counselors helped them, and also gave their high schools better ratings for helping find money for college.
Young adults overall see brighter days ahead for education. About half think kids entering elementary school today will get a better education than they did, more than double the number who predict schools will get worse.
The AP-Viacom telephone survey of 1,104 adults ages 18-24 was conducted Feb. 18-March 6 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Stanford University’s participation in this project was made possible by a grant from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
AP writer Stacy A. Anderson, AP Polling Director Trevor Tompson, Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

Financial burden adds to students stress

US students stressed out: study

WASHINGTON (AFP) – First-year students on US campuses are experiencing record levels of stress, according to a study showing increasing financial and academic pressures on young people entering university.

The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) study, which surveyed 200,000 students entering their freshman year on American campuses last year, was released Thursday and found that just under 52 percent reported their emotional health was very good or "above average."

That figure represents a major decline from 1985, the first year of the self-ratings survey, when nearly two-thirds of incoming freshmen placed themselves in those categories. It's also a decline of 3.4 percentage points from 2009.

Female freshmen were more likely than their male peers to report feeling stressed. The UCLA researchers said just under 46 percent of females ranked their emotional health as very good, compared to 59 percent of males.

Women were more than twice as likely to frequently feel "overwhelmed by all I had to do" as high school seniors preparing for their first year of university.

"Stress is a major concern when dealing with college students," said John Pryor, lead author of the report.

"If students are arriving in college already overwhelmed and with lower reserves of emotional health, faculty, deans and administrators should expect to see more consequences of stress, such as higher levels of poor judgment around time management, alcohol consumption and academic motivation."

America's economic crisis adds to the stress, according to the study, which said 53 percent of students rely on loans to help pay for college. In addition, nearly three-quarters of students reported receiving grants and scholarships, representing a nine-year high.

"The increasing cost of higher education poses a significant barrier to college access for today's students," said Sylvia Hurtado, co-author of the report.

"Students and families are now charged with the task of becoming more resourceful and strategic in finding new and creative ways to pay for college," she added.

Parents of students are also more likely to be unemployed: nearly five percent said their father was out out of work -- a record high; and the rate of unemployed mothers, nearing nine percent, continued to increase.

Economic concerns seem to have influenced students' political views. Nearly two-thirds of students said wealthy people should pay more taxes, compared to just half of the students surveyed in 2002.

U.S. Education Missing True Black History, African-Americans opting for home-schooling

African-Americans opting for home-schooling

More African-American parents are opting to home-school their children using a curriculum centered on African-American history, culture, language and study important role models.

By Erika Slife Chicago Tribune

BIGNIEW BZDAK / MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

CHICAGO — The children sat placidly in their chairs, elbows on the table, eyes forward. One munched on a clementine. A group of younger children, ages 3 to 5, colored quietly in the back.

"We lost a woman who was very important to us," announced Afrika Porter-Ollarvia. "Dr. Margaret Burroughs."

What do the students know, she asked, about Burroughs? Several hands shot up, and answers popped out: "She was an artist!" "Her poems were famous!"

Welcome to the classroom of the Indigo Nation Homeschoolers Association, where the curriculum is centered on African-American history, culture and language.

The 12 families who participate in the co-op meet once a week at the Grande Prairie Library in Hazel Crest, where they learn about the ancient art of African storytelling, lace their lessons with words in Swahili and talk about important role models in their culture, such as Burroughs, the co-founder of Chicago's DuSable Museum, who died in November.

"Families feel like the American education system does not teach African-American children," said Porter-Ollarvia, a mom of three. "A lot of times in textbooks, you'll see 'Dick run, Dick go,' Jane and Jack and Jill. But you won't see African-American names like Zarifah and Muhammad. And a lot of times our children need to see their names and have a point of reference and see themselves in the books."

Home-schooling experts say more African-American families are choosing to school their children at home, opting out of public schools, which critics say may be not only failing their children, but also in some cases shortchanging them of their history.

"That is the No. 1 reason ... the black curriculum," said Joyce Burgess, who with her husband founded the National Black Home Educators organization, based near Baton Rouge, La. "They've taken black history out. It wasn't just Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth ... and Harriet Tubman. It was also Condoleezza Rice, Shirley Chisholm; it was also Marian Anderson and the Tuskegee Airmen. They're heroes, and our children need to learn about our heroes."

Minorities make up nearly 15 percent of the approximately 2 million home-schooled students in the country, according to the National Home Education Research Institute, whose founder and president, Brian Ray, has been studying home-schooling for 27 years.

Although numbers reflecting the trends and demographics of home-schooled children are hard to come by, experts and leaders in the field say there is no doubt that minority participation is growing.

"You'll hear that, all over the country, from people who organize home-school conferences," Ray said. "It's clearly rising."

Home-schooling in general grew 77 percent from 1999 to 2007, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. In 2007, 3.9 percent of all Caucasian students were home-schooled, the research found, compared with just 0.8 percent of African-American students.

In Chicago, the Indigo Nation Homeschoolers Association started about a year ago and includes families of African and Caribbean descent.

One of the founders, Asantewaa Oppong Wadie, a Park Forest mother of four, said the group's curriculum was vital for her children's upbringing.

"To make sure the history of African people is primary, rather than secondary and optional," she said. "Our concern is about raising the whole human being, and that the whole human being is allowed to mature and develop."

In the last month, the students have studied the history and significance of Kwanzaa, the weeklong celebration of African-American heritage and culture.

In a basement room in the library, the children, sometimes with their mothers, have recited poems and stories of African-American poets. They've banged on African drums, played African music and learned African dance. They talk about social justice and acceptance, on topics such as an African-American woman's choice to let her hair go natural.

The atmosphere is fluid — the older students pay attention, while the younger ones either sit on laps or dance circles around the parent-teachers. A shy student softly recites a poem and afterward receives hearty applause from the other children while she gets a proud squeeze from her mom.

The students also participate with other children in extracurricular activities such as theater, dance and 4-H.

"It's just so much fun," said Jahlil Porter, 14. "I get to go to different places that other children don't get to go to. ... We got to volunteer for [Barack] Obama a couple of years ago. We went to Indianapolis and then we got to go to Grant Park. I know when I go to college, when I go to history class, I'm going to know all this stuff."

Year Up, Learning more than just job skils

Beyond the Business Suit

By DAVID BORNSTEIN  
(NY Times)

Earlier this week, I wrote about Year Up, an organization that is unusually successful at preparing young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds for jobs in big companies like banks, investment houses, health care providers and technology firms. What became clear to me while researching the story was that workforce development no longer means giving people job skills; it means giving them the ability to navigate a career in a professional environment. This isn’t knowledge you’re born with. You pick it up from family and friends and, if you’re lucky, from mentors. Oddly, for something so important, it receives little emphasis in schools and colleges; many job training programs gloss over it.

The professional culture is a kind of dial tone that allows everyone to connect.

Operating in a different culture can be stressful. When I first traveled to Bangladesh as a journalist, I embarrassed myself more times than I care to remember. Whether it was declining food that was offered, opening a gift in front of my hosts, or using my left hand to pass a plate, I had to be repeatedly corrected — and taught cultural norms by friends and translators. Thankfully, they cared enough to be honest with me.

But what happens if your success in life depends on mastering cultural norms that no one brings to your attention? Or, worse, that actually go against your upbringing? William Julius Wilson has observed that inner city youths in the United States are at a disadvantage whenever they seek jobs that involve making eye contact with strangers. To survive on the street, they learned to avoid eye contact.

In the past, this wasn’t a big problem. A young adult could count on finding work in a factory or a local business where co-workers came from the same community and shared the same background. Today, corporations are crossroads; they bring together people of different ethnicities, religions, political affiliations and sexual orientations. What we call the professional culture is a kind of dial tone that allows everyone to connect. For better or worse, the social norms, the courtesies, the standardized costume — business attire — serve to smooth out differences, simplify interactions, and avoid conflicts so work can get done.

The real problem is that, while proficiency in the professional culture is now linked to career success at the global level, the distribution channels for these skills have not been democratized. It’s still a game that favors insiders. That’s partly because the value of cultural skills are hard to evaluate, unlike reading and math scores, so they haven’t been prioritized — and they are tough to teach. In fact, they need to be modeled as much as taught. They often touch on sensitive issues, which is why Year Up provides extensive training to its staff in the art of giving feedback.

Year Up’s founder, Gerald Chertavian gave me an example: “If a young man came to me and said, ‘Gerald I need to ‘ax’ you a question,’ I have to tell him honestly, ‘If you go into a Fortune 500 company and say that, there will be a whole set of assumptions about who you are. I’m making no moral judgment. But if you want to act on that stage, there are norms for how language is used and you don’t want to give someone an opportunity to make an assessment about you that isn’t linked to your ability or your brains. We’re not asking you to be someone else. All we’re saying is that if you want to act on that stage, we’re going to give you the knowledge you need to succeed.

Feedback works best when it’s about helping another person to grow. If it becomes about expressing your emotions, it’s rarely effective.

“What’s deeply important is how you communicate that information to a young person,” he added. “It has to come from a place of caring, not authoritarian dictate. How you do it will determine whether they say, ‘I get it. I get to act on several stages depending on how I choose to use vernacular. I’m inheriting new stages to play on. I’m not giving anything up.’ ”

The real world isn’t nearly as frank. Managers are often too busy to tell young people about what aspects of their behavior or communication style could help, or hinder, their career prospects. When companies dismiss junior employees, it’s often without explanation. That’s why the pre-job feedback is so valuable.

Feedback works best when it’s about helping another person to grow. If it becomes about expressing your emotions, it’s rarely effective. Chertavian recalled talking to a student who had come in late a number of times. “I got frustrated with this young man and I said, ‘Don’t you get it? We’re giving you an opportunity and you’re late and it’s just not appropriate. You can’t be late.’ ”

“You could almost hear a pin drop in the room,” he recalled. “And as I walked out, my staff member said, ‘Gerald, you didn’t do a good job there.’ He said, ‘As soon as your voice hit that tone, it became the parent lecturing the child and the authority figure imposing authority. It totally didn’t do what you wanted it to do.’ ”

But even if young people master professional skills — will it make any difference in this economy? One reader, Professor Edwin Wellselsy, didn’t think so. He wrote: “[T]he leading cause of massive unemployment among youth is lack of jobs, any jobs,” he said. Everything else, he suggested, was incidental.

That may be partly true, but it overlooks two important qualifiers: the recession hasn’t hit all workers equally — and it isn’t permanent. Workers in manufacturing, construction and retail were hit particularly hard. But, as I noted, the unemployment rate for college graduates is only half the national rate. And while the low-wage, low-skill jobs that were eliminated during the recession are unlikely to come back, other kinds of jobs will open up when the economy recovers. As baby boomers retire, for example, U.S. companies are expected to face a shortage of 14 million college-educated workers over the next decade.

Moreover, in a 2009 survey of close to 1,200 companies and organizations, 79 percent reported that they were currently facing a “skills gap” — one that they would have to fill eventually. The industries expected to grow the most are education and health services, and management, scientific and technical consulting services.

That’s why Year Up prepares students for work in these areas. Even during the recession, it managed to expand and find internships for every student who enrolled. It focuses on jobs that require problem solving, critical thinking and complex communication — jobs that are difficult to outsource, like customer service, and jobs in finance and health care, where confidentiality considerations militate against sending them overseas.

Related

More From Fixes

Read previous contributions to this series.

Year Up also demonstrates how important it is for job training programs to work closely with front line managers who supervise interns and new recruits. In late fall, for example, some of its corporate clients reported talent shortages in their I.T. “quality assurance” units. (A quality assurance specialist develops and runs computer scripts to test software and identify defects.) Within weeks, Year Up created a quality assurance sub-track and the first cohort of interns in this track will start working next week. “I think Year Up operates as close to market time as is possible in an educational setting,” notes Daniel Rabuzzi, who directs operations and strategy for Year Up’s New York office.

As more of its graduates spread out into the professional world, Year Up is monitoring their progress. In a 2009 survey of graduates who were six years out of the program, it found that a third of respondents had obtained a college degree or certificate (studying at night and on weekends) while another 10 percent said they were on track to get one within the year. Only 11 percent of students had not pursued further education. This is all good news. What remains to be seen is whether Year Up’s professional training model can open up not just a few thousand career paths per year, but tens or hundreds of thousands. I’ll be following the program as it pursues new partnerships with community colleges — that’s where the majority of low-income students begin higher education — so that’s where big changes will have to come.

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David Bornstein is the author of “How to Change the World,” which has been published in 20 languages, and “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and is co-author of “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.” He is the founder of dowser.org, a media site that reports on social innovation.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Tiger Mommy Adds To America's Fears

The fear of a rising China has spread far and wide in the United States. An economy fresh out of a recession, diminishing factory jobs and output, souring education, and China’s rise to the second largest economy in the world are just a few reasons.

To couple to fear in the air, Asian mother and Yale law professor Amy Chua has called western mothers weak as the question is raised, “Are Asian mothers superior”? Her new book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is a New York Times best seller and highlights the differences of how children are raised in western culture compared to those in China. It also she sheds a bright light on the different mindsets of American and Asian parents

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother has been controversial yet revealing. Amy Chua’s memoir reveals the strictness and pressure of a Chinese mother. She states that her children were never allowed to attend a sleepover, have a play date, be in a school play, complain about not being in a school play, watch TV or play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama, play any instrument other than the piano or violin, and not play the piano or violin. She has even admitted to once calling her daughter ‘garbage’, and that she once rejected a birthday card from hear daughter because of a lack of thought put into it.

While Mrs. Chua’s compassion and love for her daughters has been questioned, so has the resulting American child. School rankings worldwide have exposed a vital weakness in America’s future. Our children are less skilled in math and science than numerous Asian nations. In addition, American children are considered by many as lazy, indulgent, and prone to be obese. The overexposure to video games, television, and the dominance of ‘pop culture’ coupled with the lack of skill based knowledge, appears to be a recipe for disaster.

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother has opened up much needed dialogue in America. Parents are questioning how they raise their children, questioning the techniques of the tiger mother, and the American is questioning its education system.

Fear can be an excellent motivator. China is becoming a superpower while America is faltering. It is no secret! America is trying to recover from a recession, is in extreme debt (with large amounts owed to China), and it seems to be producing a less skilled and educated population. It more than obvious that the U.S. must make some changes to keep it’s number one standing in the future. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother has Americans trying to figure out what their battle hymn is!

Wall Street Journal Article: Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html

Time Magazine Article: Chinese vs. Western Mothers: Q&A with Amy Chua

http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/11/chinese-vs-western-mothers-q-a-with-amy-chua

Why Do We Go To School?

Why Do We Go To School?

The government mandates that every child in America attend school, but the question is for what reason? If you were to ask a class of sixth graders why they attend school, what answer do you think you would get? For the sake of argument, I would guess the reply to be ‘so we can get a good job’ or ‘so we can be smart’. Is that the actual reason why we are all forced to attend school? We all need a full explanation of why we go to school, and why we learn!

In our system of education we are force fed information, or so called facts, but were are not taught to ask intelligent questions that will lead us to greater understanding. Why we learn or go to school is an important question, and we must learn to not only ask questions but how to ask questions. In our education system, men women and children need more Explanation, not just facts (or so called facts). Explanation helps us to dig deeper under the surface of knowledge and it will ultimately lead us to understanding.

Explanation is a part of the scientific method! History teaches us that it was not sufficient enough for Isaac Newton to know that an apple fell to the earth when hanging from a tree. He desired to know why. He desired an Explanation for the action. This desire of an explanation led him to reasoning that would change the face of science as it was known at that time.

In Isaac Newton was the desire to know. The desire To Know must be nurtured in all of our children. We must create curious beings that search deeper and deeper for truths unknown. This is a process that leads to new discoveries, inventions, and solutions to problems that plague the world. Our education system must develop children that are unafraid to ask questions and know how to ask questions. This will assist in developing creative thinkers.

Thought is the basis of ideas, ideas lead to actions, and actions lead to results. The point of going to school, acquiring knowledge, or education is to develop the human being into their full potential, which is A God (not They GOD). We learn, acquire knowledge, and go to school so that we can develop that which is within us. The natural talents, gifts, and skills that are in us must be brought out through the process of learning. Our skills, gifts, and talents must be nurtured and brought out so that they can be of service to self, family, community, and nation.

Parents and educators must explain to children why they go to school and why they learn. Every child must understand this important principle from a young age. This is a pre-school and kindergarten type lesson. Also, it must be understood that learning is a lifelong process. Children and adults must recognize that learning is beneficial and fun. We do not go to school so that we can just ‘get a good job’. We go to school so that we can be developed as human beings and as individuals made in the image and likeness of God.