Have We Really Been on Campus for a Semester?!

Happy winter break, everybody! I can't believe how fast our first semester on campus flew by.


During the past few weeks, UNITE has been extremely busy with both chapter meetings and events. At our chapter's final meeting of the semester, Dorothy Espelage, who's a nationally recognized bullying expert, spoke to us about the realities of bullying in the classroom. It was really interesting to learn that what looks like bullying can be interpreted differently depending on culture.


On the last day of class this semester, we hosted our first college-wide celebration, the Latino Culture and Education Fiesta! We had fajitas, tamales, chips, salsa, beans, queso dip, and more donated to us from various restaurants in the campus area (remembering this is making me extremely hungry!).


There was SO much food!!


We gave out free food, had a raffle featuring Starbucks coffee, and handed out information about teaching Latino students from professors and CPS teachers. I had a blast talking with people I hadn't met yet from the College of Education. I will admit it was a little bittersweet when I realized it was the last time I'd see most of our members for at least a month! I've met some of the most interesting, intelligent, and motivated people on campus through UNITE, so it's sad we won't all be together for awhile!
Clearly, I'm in denial that we will not have our Senior Advisers around next semester. I'm not ready to think about that yet!

Finally, last Saturday we volunteered with the Champaign Park District to help facilitate a free Christmas celebration for area kids. There was cookie decorating, face painting, snacks, ornament making...and most importantly, Santa! We spend a lot of time as future educators learning about students (obviously!), so I thought it was really interesting to meet some families! Everyone was really excited to be there, and it was a wonderful way to wrap up a great semester. 

What do we have planned for the future? Our major event for next semester is our ALTERNATIVE SPRING BREAK trip to WASHINGTON D.C.! Most of our energy will go into planning that. We're going to continue to have bi-weekly meetings with speakers, as well as hosting a monthly fundraiser (like our famous bake sales or our Latino Culture luncheon). Over break, our leadership team will be travelling to Chicago to do some team building with UNITE Nationals. Finally, we're hoping to plan a workshop at U of I later in the semester. It's crazy to think about how much we've done, and yet we still have so much to do this year!

If you're interested in joining UNTIE in 2012, be sure to email me at president.uniteuiuc@gmail.com so we can let you know all about our meeting times and dates!

Happy holidays!

Changing the Education of Children for Tomorrow with Dr. Steve Perry

“Can you imagine a school where teachers don’t even like kids? Don’t even like them?”

Everyone sat silently for a moment, peering around and mentally envisioning this awful place. The room was filled with the men of Alpha Phi Alpha historically black fraternity, UNITE members, and other fascinated attendees from around campus. The questioner was Dr. Steve Perry, author, CNN correspondent, Essence Magazine columnist, and most importantly school principle. (Dr. Steve Perry is pictured below with the UNITE Executive board).

Dr. Perry told us how his work in schools like this changed his beliefs about education. His belief that all children are valuable led to his charter school, Capital Preparatory Magnet School, which is based around the belief that all children need to be embraced and encouraged to succeed. (Investigate!: http://www.capitalprep.org/).

Capital Prep is the brainchild of passionate urban educators who teamed up with Dr. Perry to serve low-income minority students in Hartford, Connecticut. They kept asking themselves, what amount of fabulously talented and innovative minority students have been rejected or disempowered by America’s past of oppression, disenfranchisement, and segregation that spreads all the way into the school system?

The Capital Prep team decided that the children of Hartford deserved to go to school where the adults love them, where they have authentic opportunities to thrive, and where no more of America’s talent will be wasted based on race or class identity. Dr. Perry designed his school around the students needs, crafting periods that allowed students to engage with deep learning, providing both breakfast and lunch so kids have the fuel to learn effectively, and so that each child who gets out of bed and comes to his school in the morning will be taught something worth learning – what he believes are the basic promises of a good education.

Our current school system has problems that many groups, individuals, and districts are trying to remedy. And many have. Many are on longer-term plans toward success.

What we at UNITE found most personally inspiring? Something we hope to take from Dr. Perry and into our classrooms with us every single day:

“I want every single child to wake up tomorrow morning and go to school getting the very best learning opportunities. Not next week, month, or year. Tomorrow. Now.”

-Special thanks to the men of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, for inviting us to co-host and attend the The Ritual, with speaker Dr. Perry. (Pictured at left, with UNITE Executive board).

-Special thanks to Dr. Steve Perry for flying to University of Illinois on Sunday, October 23^rd and making it back to Hartford for his students Monday morning.

Want to attend an Upcoming Meeting??:

Wednesday, November 16th in Room 210A

Wednesday, November 30th in Room 210A

LGBT Speaker Panel and Grant-Writing Workshop at ISU

LGBT Speakers Panel:
We began our UNITE-week last Wednesday, when three Illinois students from the LGBT Panel Speakers Program met us at the College of Education to talk to us about their personal experiences in pre-college school settings. The three agreed that being an open, available, and respectful instructor will give students the best opportunities to approach us with any issues, concerns, or general ideas they want to talk about, whether LGBT related or not. We also talked about bullying in general, and came to the conclusion that if possible, we need to be listening and present in a few of the “lawless” places of schools: hallways, lunchrooms, locker bays, and school buses. As a group, we came to the conclusion that promoting an inclusive and positive environment extends past our classrooms and jobs as teachers: we need to be people who expect respect for everyone all the time.

Our speakers also told us about the LGBT Ally program hosted by the Resource Center. A bunch of us are hoping to extend the conversations we started with our panelists, and attend the workshops this fall! Participants can receive an ally sticker to post in the classroom, which can signal to students that we are inclusive and supportive, allowing anyone who wants to talk to approach us first. Interested or want to come along? Sign-up dates and more info can be found here: http://studentaffairs.illinois.edu/diversity/lgbt/index.html (Scroll to the bottom)

Grant-Writing Workshop:
Just three days later, eight of us found ourselves again at the Union Circle Drive for another workshop! This time, though, we had less coffee and more daylight since departure time stood at 7:30 am. Forty-five minutes of central Illinois cornfields later, we arrived at ISU and checked in for a Grant Writing Workshop hosted entirely by their chapter.

After a couple ice breakers, we moved right into a basic intro to grant writing called “Show Me the Money.” We talked about what grants are, where you can find them, and how they can help fund classrooms, schools, service trips, and more. Probably the most exciting thing we got hands-on experience with was DonorsChoose.org. DonorsChoose matches certified public school teachers with anyone hoping to donate to schools in need. The teacher creates a grant proposal and ‘shops’ for specific items his or her class needs, posting all on DonorsChoose.org. Next, anyone with access to a computer can donate until the grant is filled – two weeks later, a white box arrives in the teacher’s classroom filled with what students need to learn and succeed!

Kira Hamann, a doctoral student and former CPS-Ravenswood elementary teacher, told us about the 7 mini-grants she and her classroom received in just a few years. Kira used her DonorsChoose profile to show us the inner workings and requirements of the site not available for public usage viewing. After we had a better understanding of DonorsChoose’s requirements and processes, she helped us draft our own “grants” for things we may need in our very first year of teaching: paper and pencils, a classroom Flip camera, a class-set of poetry books, protractors and compasses, the works! Our focus was to highlight our students’ strengths and material needs in order to reach out to others who are able to donate. Special thanks to the ISU UNITE chapter for hosting us.

If you’d like to learn more about DonorsChoose.org, and how you could receive grants in your career, check out their website: http://www.donorschoose.org/

If you’d like to further discuss any of these topics, or check out UNITE, join us in room 210A! Meetings for the next month are:

Monday, Oct 10^th @ 7:00 pm

Wednesday, Oct 19^th @ 5:30 pm

Monday, Oct 24^th @ 7:00 pm

Wednesday, Nov 2^nd @ 5:30 pm

Speakers, Teachers and Sweets

Ellen Lindsey, president of the Champaign County Down Syndrome Network, and mother of a child with Down Syndrome was our guest speaker at our meeting last week.  She explained what the Champaign County Down Syndrome Network was as well as the different types of support it provides to families and individuals with Down Syndrome. She also informed us of various events that the DSN puts on to promote inclusion and acceptance of those with Down Syndrome such as the Buddy Walk, Inclusion Week, and Spread the word to end the word.  Our UNITE members were anxious to find out more information about these events in hopes of volunteering at one of them in the near future! For more information visit www.champaigndsn.org

Ellen went on to teach us a little bit about Down Syndrome itself through sharing the story of her son.  We learned various strategies that teachers can use to effectively work with students with Down Syndrome and their parents.   She explained that parents of children with Down Syndrome want to work together with teachers, not against them.  As teachers we should make a special effort to get to know the student and their family so that we are able to understand the functioning support system they have in place.  Teachers that would like to implement new ideas when working with these students should not be offended if the parents aren’t on board with the idea right off the bat.  If you are able to excite the parents about your idea, there is a greater chance that they will be willing to let you to use it with their child.

This week we reviewed the three steps of the Behavior Management Cycle that we learned at the UNITE national workshop. UNITE members shared how they used what was taught at the workshop in their own classrooms while student teaching.  We also discussed People First Language, and the teacher’s responsibility as a role model to promote its use.

We also held our first official fundraiser bake sale this week to help sponsor our alternative spring break trip.  Thank you to all members who baked delicious goods and helped to make our bake sale a success! 

The Behavior Management Cycle and Gallons of Coffee

5:45 am, Saturday September 17^th, the Union Circle Drive:

Ten members of UNITE gathered around three cars with thermoses full of coffee, drooping eyes and business casual clothes. What were we up to at 5:45 in the morning on a Saturday?! (I’m sure many of us asked ourselves this question as our alarms went off…)

We were waking up with a palpable excitement to get to our Classroom Management Workshop developed by UNITE National Headquarters Staff (hosted at Henson Elementary School, just West of Douglass Park in North Lawndale, Chicago).

Two and a half hours of driving, multiple radio station changes, and a few McDonalds refill stops later, we arrived to our destination. We were welcomed by UNITE staffers, CPS teachers, City Year participants, and fellow UNITE chapter members from ISU and Indiana University.

Everyone jumped right in to learn more about The Behavior Management Cycle from Sherita Carter-King, a teacher-educator from the AUSL (Academy of Urban School Leadership, Chicago’s Turnaround Partner). After she explained and modeled the cycle of Explicit Instruction, Behavioral Narration, and Corrective Behavior, we were all impressed with how effective it could be. She asked us to specifically, “please work with your elbow partner for two minutes to develop a single sentence representing your ideas.”

What sold us most on this approach? After Mrs. Carter-King modeled it on us for 40 minutes, she asked us to generally discuss the Cycle with those around us. Without explicit directions she’d been providing us with, we were at a loss for how to proceed! We all laughed at how quickly we followed her modeling, but the true message was there: effective classroom management can boil down to providing clear instruction, narrating behavior we want to see in our students, and providing a choice system for corrective measures in the classroom.

Next, we attended break out sessions with headquarters staff, ranging from the usage of peace circles in the everyday classroom, to structuring the classroom setting to explicitly teaching students how to act like the students we expect them to be.

Four hours, countless models, discussions, critical thinking exercises, practice sessions, and tiny tips later, we were finished! We came away with concrete knowledge and resources for further exploration.

Our approval rate of our first ever University of Illinois attended UNITE workshop? 100%. (We’d like to extend a special thanks to the staff who hosted us!)

Wondering more about what we learned, and how you can learn it, too? Attend our meeting this Wednesday at 5:00 pm in Room 210A of the Education Building! We can provide you with the resources to check out the Behavior Management Cycle, and our other tips, for yourself! Also, check out the links below:

Got questions about our upcoming workshops? Look here!: http://www.urbanneeds.org/Workshops.html

Are you wondering more about AUSL? Check this out: http://www.ausl-chicago.org/

Don’t know what is the world City Year is? Find out: http://www.cityyear.org/default_ektid22283.aspx

University of Illinois' UNITE Chapter Up and Running

Hey Everyone,

The University of Illinois’ UNITE chapter is finally up and running! We are only three weeks in, but we have accomplished so much already!  We have spent our first few weeks getting to know each other and have begun discussing strategies for teaching in urban areas.

Last week we discussed the myth of the Superhero Teacher and the stereotypes the media creates when portraying teachers.  We watched short clips from Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver, and Freedom Writers and saw a common theme of the teachers in these movies come sweeping into these underprivileged urban schools and saving the day for all of their students.  Another thing we noticed was how all of these teachers were willing to give up their home lives to cater to the needs of their students. Although these movies are based on true stories, they create unrealistic expectations and views of teachers and their methods.

Follow up questions:

Do you think it is fair that the movies focused upon the teacher’s achievements, rather than just the students?

How can we as educators work to create student centered classrooms where the needs of the students are prioritized, without giving up our own lives?

At our last meeting we read and discussed the New York Times article entitled “Rift in Arizona as Latino Class Is Found Illegal”, which can be found using the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/us/08ethnic.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

This article explained how a Mexican American literature class that students had become engaged and passionate about, was declared illegal by the state of Arizona. The state, which includes some Mexican-American studies in its official curriculum, sees the classes as less about educating students than creating future activists. We discussed how culturally relevant material is one of the best ways to help students create personal connections and engage with the material.  Unfortunately as teachers, students watch and follow our every move. We need to be cautious so not to overstep our boundaries and present material or our own attitudes that might persuade our students in a negative manner.

Follow up questions: 

As teachers, students are constantly looking up to us for guidance; in what ways do you think your attitude about certain issues taught in the classroom will impact your students?

If you were the teacher of a social justice class what types of strategies could you use to engage your students with the material, without overstepping your boundaries?

We are excited to attend our first workshop held by UNITE National in Chicago this upcoming Saturday!  This workshop will focus on the programs and resources CPS is currently using in order to help us develop our own classroom management plans.

What in the world is UNITE? And what does it mean for ME?

Welcome to our UNITE Blog! Since you're here, we assume you've heard of us as a new RSO, or are maybe already a member! At our blog, we try to keep updates on UNITE's progress and work for our members and for those who don't know much about us. Which brings us to our biggest FAQ:

  As a new organization to campus, the most frequently asked question asked of us is, “What is UNITE? What do you do?” Very simply, a look into the dictionary under our name can help answer that:

u·nite 

[yoo-nahyt]

verb, u·nit·ed, u·nit·ing.

–verb (used with object)

1.

to join, combine, or incorporate so as to form a single whole or unit.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/unite)

More specifically, we are a single unit of future educators. We are joining together to prepare ourselves to serve any student who walks through the classroom door. Don’t call us a club! We strive to create a dedicated and cohesive network of future and current urban professionals who will have a positive and lasting impact on our ailing city public school systems and the students they serve.

By now you may be thinking that UNITE is only for students hoping to work in inner cities, but nothing could be less true.

Yes, we have many members from and returning to cities to work in the most high-needs areas. And yes, our focus is upon issues that tend to flourish in these areas. But these social problems and their classroom manifestations, like poverty, poor classroom attendance, neighborhood violence, and lack of tolerance for diversity, can occur in virtually every and any school. We as UNITE members recognize this, and hope to be able to provide and explore resources to combat these issues together. That’s part of the reason why 1) we have no attendance requirement. You are a professional and adult, and your desire to learn more about special education inclusion, LGBT issues in classrooms, and the greater community needs of East St. Louis should be the reason you are involved with UNITE. We believe the knowledge we will construct together will be what is important to you and your career, not the ‘points’ necessary to be a member.

So, our goal to create a cohesive network of urban professionals who build knowledge together seems like a pretty tall order, right? So how do we do this?

We do this in many different ways, but the common thread is that UNITE is member-owned. We attend enough lectures at Illinois during the day, and hardly need more from our organizations in the evening.

Meetings: Instead, we strive to craft meaningful meetings based around member interaction and engagement. We alternate meeting type by week. We have table-talks (Mondays @ 5:30), where we tackle our own concerns head on and plan for future events, and speaker-weeks (Wednesdays @ 7:00), where we invite a knowledgeable professional or faculty member to help expand our awareness, debunk stereotypes, and create our own knowledge in an interactive workshop.

Professional Development Workshops: Hosted in the city of Chicago by our national headquarters, these give us the opportunity to work alongside in-service teachers and administrators to tackle issues like Classroom Management (Sept 17^th), Collaborative Resource Sharing Fairs (Oct 15^th), Grant-Writing (TBA), and Preventing Teacher Burnout (Nov 12^th). They are FREE for all UNITE members!!

Service-Trips: In addition to small trips in the Midwest, UNITE-ers help plan and fundraise for our major Alternative Spring Break trip to an urban center in the US. Our sister chapter at ISU has ventured from Washington DC to Los Angeles to New Orleans in the past, and we are aiming just as high!

If you’d like to take part, big or small, in preparing yourself for teaching, come check out UNITE! After all, we won’t force you to earn points, but you may find that you’ve walked away with at least a kernel of professional experience from what you’ve decided to take part in.

Want to contact us with questions about UNITE or our meeting times? Please email:

Sarah Strom: sdstrom097@gmail.com

If you're looking for a bit more info, check out:

UNITE Nationals Homepage: http://www.urbanneeds.org/Home.html

UNITE University Chapters Page: http://www.urbanneeds.org/University_Chapters.html

A Sample of a UNITE Chapter, ISU's Homepage: http://www.urbanneeds.org/IllinoisState.html

UNITE Programs Page: http://www.urbanneeds.org/Programming.html