Young & Motivated AMIGOS Head to Latin America

On Saturday, Ariana and I taught a class on Latin America and democracy in conjunction with AMIGOS, a nonprofit organization. The students are preparing to go to Honduras, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama, and Paraguay this summer to carry out service projects with AMIGOS.

These juniors and seniors were impressively knowledgeable about the issues and very keen to get into debate mode, which we encouraged. Does democracy help to combat poverty in Latin America? Will Fernando Lugo, the newly elected Paraguayan president--who has ended the reign of the Colorado party--bring positive change to the life of an average citizen? From a Cuban perspective, should Raul Castro continue reforms such as easing the restrictions on consumer goods? These were just a few of the issues raised during an hour and a half of lively discussion.

After class, a handful of students came to us with further questions about the field of international relations. They seemed very excited about everything we had discussed and dedicated to studying and working on international issues. Not having had the opportunity to volunteer abroad myself since 2004, it was very inspiring to see these enthusiastic, thoughtful young people headed out to the field for a life-enriching experience. Here come the next generation of YPFPs!

Searching for Summer Programs

Hello! I hope everyone is doing well. It was great to get together with the YPFP-C crew earlier this month. We are in a position to finish this school year very positively and continue to build the program. It is important to keep the momentum going through the summer months. If everyone can spend a little bit of time, we can find many excellent outlets to stay involved. We want to continue to build relationships with teachers that will allow us to get off to a fast start this fall. As schools are wrapping up for the year we do have a sense of urgency. Hat tip to Meaghan for all of her efforts in this area.

In a brief brainstorming session this evening people came up with many intersting areas to look. I thought this UMD (How about those Terps, Sarah!) program looked good.
http://www.precollege.umd.edu/

I know we can find some great opportunities and build our contacts. Please pass on the details of these contacts to the leadership staff. I am sure others have better ideas about this stuff than my scatterbrained thoughts. It would be great to throw some ideas up on the blog.

Check out this article featuring a student from one of our partner schools, Thurgood Marshall Academy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042301322.html

Hydropolitics and human trafficking at Thurgood Marshall

Jumaina and I taught a lesson on Monday, April 14 to Amanda Flynn's senior seminar on global issues. The six students in the class are preparing for an MUN conference that is happening later this week and will be participating in debates on freshwater resources in Qatar and Israel and human trafficking in Qatar and Kazakhstan. The class was 90 minutes long and, because there were so few students and we assumed that they would be reasonably well-informed on their own topics, Jumaina and I figured that the hard exchange of information would occur as more of a discussion than a lecture. We came in with maps, articles, handouts, notes, and a lesson map specifying how long each part of the class should take rather than a defined lesson plan.

Overall, I would say the class went ok. The students didn't know nearly as much as we thought they would, which didn't lend itself well to a free-flowing discussion. Jumaina and I had also planned to take the students on in debates of their topics, but neither of us felt that they really had enough knowledge yet to debate well. Of the five students who were there, I thought that perhaps only 2-3 of them were really engaged at any given time, although perhaps that's to be expected in April of their senior year.

On another note, maybe I was just really paranoid that I wouldn't know enough about hydropolitics because it's not one of my strong subjects, but I spent roughly 16 hours preparing for the lesson, including synthesizing what I thought was important into one-sided worksheets on the key issues that Israel and Qatar face in this field and the ways in which they have gone about dealing with them. In the future, I think I'll spend less time preparing, although have any of you gone into a classroom and felt that you weren't adequately prepared and knowledgeable about the materials you were teaching?

-- Ariana (my user name is DDFI because I run another blog at work. :)

DC Charter Schools

After having visited Cesar Chavez and Thurgood Marshall charter schools through YPFP-C, I wanted to learn more about DC charter schools. According to this Washington Post story from April 2007, if current trends continue DC charter schools will have more enrolled students than DC public schools by 2014! As of April 2007 a quarter of DC's school children attended charter schools. A more recent Post brief confirms this trend for 2008, stating that for the first time charter school enrollment has topped 20,000 students with 5 new charter schools set to open in the fall of 2008.

The District passed legislation approving charter schools in 1996. Only New Orleans has a higher concentration of charter schools. Charter schools are funded on a per pupil basis by the city. Parents sign up for the school of their choosing, but if there is a waiting list they must enter their children's names into a lottery for each charter school they would like to attend. They are notified in the spring if their children will be able to enroll.

DC charter schools have had mixed success with meeting national standards. Some within the local charter school community would like to create a standardized measure of performance.

Want to learn more? Here are some links:
DC Association of Charter Schools
DC Public Charter School Board