25 maneras to build your comunidad

I've gotten some requests from new online contacts for advice on how to build online connections. I'm very new to this, so I'm sending you some ideas I just saw today in Chris Brogan's blog. He's one of my online mentors, actually, although we've never met nor had a conversation.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/25-ways-to-build-your-community/

Here are the first six. Visit Chris' blog and also get in the habit of reading his entries if you are interested in becoming more adept at connecting and networking online.
1. Read at least 100 blogs regularly. Not every post, but a variety. Extra hint: go OUTSIDE your particular passion circle.
2. Write brief, tight, actionable posts that people want to reference later.
3. Don’t ignore the value of linkbait and viral content. Don’t ALWAYS do that, but hey, it can work.
4. Give people your best. I know that sounds trite, but I’m saying don’t charge for the best and give away your crap. That’s a yard sale. Be Tiffany & Co.
5. When you write about people, use LINKS to connect your writing to them. This encourages good neighbor policies.
6. Write great titles that draw people in. (Brian Clark is the master.)

for the rest, the other 19, you have to go to the blog address I listed above.

For those new to my blog, please note that this is for my activist friends who are already adept at organizing, informing and generally being advocates but who are new to the social media world.

Google not just for your abuelita - great title - advocates and activists take note

http://www.pr-squared.com/2008/10/google_not_just_for_your_grand.html
Visit this blog.
I'm talking to those of us new to the social media network but old to education advocacy.Us older folks just waking up to the powerful networks, connections and online collaborations must take heed. Online connections are not necessarily a community, a movement or actions to change society, but, wow, they sure can help.
We must accelerate action...become more agile at seizing the moment, and connecting directly with larger networks.
Google isn't just for our abuelitas...And while you are at it, check out one of my Techie/Geek mentors, Bryan Person:
http://socialvoice.liveworld.com/blog/Bryan-Persons-Blog/2000001553
This is a great slide presentation on blogs...so if any of you education activists is thinking about it, get a start with these slides.
Another very important person in social media is Bryan Solis. He's one of the greats and he keeps developing new stuff.
http://www.briansolis.com/
One amazing visual/diagram he developed brings together all the current tools and social media in a rainbow/fan/mandala that, for me, really integrated a myriad of things out there that I didn't know how to put together.
Check out http://www.briansolis.com/2007/06/future-of-communications-manifesto-for.html
And there are many more to keep up with and who can guide us through these strange new social media paths.

It's really about the STUDENTS

Let not young souls be smothered out before they do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride.*

I was going to say 'kids' but that's somewhat adultist...children doesn't usually bring up the image of older teenagers and young adults, so it's students, for now.
It really is about them. You families (adults, parents, older care-takers, legal guardians) just happen to be the ones who will most care and be in the strongest position to defend, encourage, believe in, and hope the best for the students.
I state this because the blog is titled Parent Leadership in Education. I'm not really a parent advocate, per se, but from a practical organizing point of view, have to go with the line of least resistance.
Families are not perfect, but then neither are children. I'm a child advocate because that is the specific group I have made my vocation and my work. It could have been workers or the environment or any other cause that I consider important and vital to a healthy society. I just decided.
As I support parents in having and creating the best possible neighborhood public schools for their children, I'm not romanticizing or idealizing families. None are perfect and few are candidates for sainthood by RC Vatican standards, but they are the ones I will defend and support.Too much is said against them. Even as Cosby and others support a logical and rational taking on of responsibility, I still see institutions, specifically schools, thinking and saying bad things about groups of families and children.

"It is the world's one crime its babes grow dull, its poor are limp, ox-like and leaden-eyed."*

So, to help swing the pendulum toward the other side, to balance out the overwhelming blaming of 'those' families and children, I'll raise the banner high and scream (though it might sound like a strange croak coming from an old geezer) Let's value parents...er...families, who'll be the loudest cheerleaders shouting
"Hooray for the children" er...students.

*Vachel Lindsay's "The Leaden Eyed". One of my favorite poems in the first Junior English textbook I used in San Felipe High School in the mid 60s.

A childless, single guy... a parent advocate! ???

My history with parents and schools goes back to the late 60s.
I had been a high school English teacher who then took on becoming a VISTA supervisor and trainer. It was a special program, Vista Minority Mobilization Project, and it put me in contact with families and students all over south Texas that were very dissatisfied with their public schools. Families were experiencing racism in schools and were demanding that there be more Mexican American teachers, that students not be punished for speaking Spanish…that students be prepared for college and be considered college material. Families initiated school walkouts to put pressure on schools. I went from goody-student council sponsor-popular-teacher to angry-community-organizer.
YES: my life work had to be around advocacy for children in public schools... public education is to me the crucible and hothouse (competing but apt metaphors) for democratic principles and for leadership development and the institution that will provide poor and working class families the avenue for betterment and a brighter future.
I surprized myself with this realization because I had been a literature buff and English major in college and had expected to go for my masters in literature and become a writer or college prof. My four years as a high school English teacher really changed my dreams and personal vision. Education, public education, is my vocation, my vice and my path. Advocating for civil rights, social justice and liberation provided the fuel to energize my actions. I was angry at myself for belatedly realizing that racism and bigotry was all around, and also, that it was not just a black/white confrontation. I spent a few years marching around with raised fist shouting "Chicano Power". (That was 30 years ago, and doesn't reflect what I do and say these days). I am still deeply concerned with the economic, social and educational attainment of the Latino community, but that is not my sole concern, nor do I see that cause as separate or exclusive to all the other social needs and concerns.

After several years of starting alternative systems, co-creating community organizations and roving around south Texas as an organizer, in 1975 I settled into an advocacy organization that met all my criteria for an ideal locus of activity: The Intercultural Development Research Association(IDRA) brain-child of Dr. Jose A. Cardenas.
>Public School advocacy, support and research;
>Teacher training, curriculum development and public policy work;
>A Latino education think-tank with more Latino and African American Ph. D.s than most university schools of education;
>Academia and rigor coupled with field work and advocacy.
I was let loose in the candy store...the sweets were the bright, creative, intelligent and progressive educators committed to equity and excellence in our public schools. Brains and brawn -- courage and compassion.

I became the lead, the point-person for parent involvement as well as the lead trainer in-house. Because I had been an organizer, I was considered a natural to work with families. In the early 80s we had a project funded by the Office of Bilingual Affairs to work with parents whose children were in bilingual programs. We conducted bilingual training of trainers for those families.
Our Family Leadership in Education model, our organizational sense of what we needed to do to help parents support and excellent education, evolved from those and other experiences. We at IDRA advocate for excellent schools for all children...And the most important and natural allies in that cause are parents/families.
Ergo, thusly, and that is why,our focus in parent/family involvement is leadership. Parenting programs abound. Some good and many mediocre models, training, packages, magazines, consultants and organizations focus on how to be a better parent.

We see a vacuum in the leadership arena...and yet know that if parents ever really take leadership and organize/network and create the neighborhood schools their children merit, watch out! The promise of this democracy will no longer be a dream.

And back to me, single and childless, and with a wide catholicity of interests, causes, and possibilities that surround me. Some weeks I read voraciously: current pulitzer-prize fiction, tomes of modern poetry or re-read some american literary classics...nothing directly related to my professional work. Some months I hang out in museums and attend artsy-fartsy plays and contemporary theater. I will sometimes binge on collages, creating but some interesting but not very well executed pieces (I'm red-green color blind).
I do keep up with different liberation movements, and feel agreement and spiritual brotherhood with friends of the earth, feminists, gay liberationists, and various grass roots political movements all over the world. But what I act upon every week, what I'm committed to as an act of faith way beyond reason, is to create public schools that work brilliantly for all children.

Who can explain magic, miraculous art, love, faith, spirituality and obsession? The reason why this single, childless, old guy advocates for children in public schools and their families as the strongest force for advocacy in the defense of their children is...just because.

Worse than sticks & stones

Wrongs unredressed, or insults unavenged -- Wordsworth

Prejudice squints when it looks, and lies when it talks. -- Unknown

While visiting an elementary school in East LA and standing in the hallway with the principal, two young boys were walking towards us from opposite directions. They had large wood paddles with restroom keys and as they came up to each other it was obvious they knew each other but had not seen each other recently. One boy asks the other, "Are you LEP like me?" "No" responded the other."I'm At Risk!"
These pre-teens had self-defined -- being of limited-English-proficiency and in danger of not completing school.

Our educational labels are stigmatizing -- and of little positive benefit to students. No matter how we adults sort out and classify students, the label becomes a prophesy fulfilled, a prediction school really pays attention to and, for the deficit branded student, an academic futility tattoo.
The challenge is not only to replace the words, but to shift the attitudes. We've shifted 'drop out prevention' to 'school holding power' so that the locus of change is the school. But when the phrase is used and not understood by the school person we have to say 'dropout prevention'.

The public conversation is complicated by the overt political use of language for political propaganda. "Tax Relief" is used to combat and re-focus the public interest in funding schools and encouragement of a general will to contribute proportionately to have excellent public schools. We, my side, speak of 'full funding' for public schools. We appeal to the social contract we have made with all of our children to have access to an excellent education. Our phrases include 'Graduation Guaranteed' and 'Graduation for All'. The words are a means of having a conversation about the possibilities.
But the challenge remains to convert individuals from the feeling that they are beleaguered taxpayers being bled for no-good-reason to a different notion: that of responsible adults providing for the children and for our economic future.

My opening salvo was about words that hurt and harm. The closing is about words that encourage narrow-minded selfishness. In either case, to loosely quote Sancho Panza, it doesn't matter if the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it still will be bad for the pitcher. Educational labels and phrases can hurt our children much worse than rocks and clubs.

Parents Mentoring Parents

My colleague Frances Guzman and I just returned from conducting a half-day workshop with a small group of parent liaisons in one of the local school districts in San Antonio TX.

The project is in its 3rd year and is a pilot project sponsored by the local United Way agency as part of its efforts to address root causes of community issues. The program has recruited ladies from the neighborhoods (barrios) to become outreach workers and energizers for parent involvement. One result that this program has had is that there was district-wide customer-service training of the personnel that work at the principal's offices of the school campuses. This came from the documented finding of this project that many families were being treated with less than civilly or politely than any family merits.
This project has been influenced by other efforts of 'promotoras' happening in different communities and with other agencies, such as health providers and social service agencies.
The goal is not just a more personal outreach and communication with families, but a direction away from the 'social service' model provided by a social worker, but a collective move to address needs in the community through information networks and the encouraging of mutual help and initiative among families.
In this setting, these school based outreach workers are now being challenged to pass on what they have learned and what they are doing. As each connects with families, they will each begin to identify those emerging leaders that can take on supportive and counseling roles with their neightbors and peers.
It was a marvelous opportunity to see the intelligence and problem-solving capability of the individuals in the group and also the group collaboration and cohesion.
I'm dropping the basic agenda and task sheet in here. It illustrates how bilingual we have to be, and is an echo of the actual bilingual, constantly code-switching approach we used. They had a translator with earphones for the participants and it began that way, but since I was doing constant translation and jumping from Spanish to English, he came up and told me that his services really weren't needed and I thanked him profusely because he was such a competent and polite young man. Most of us in my organization that are bilingual actually model this approach, many times without the blessings of the sponsors who tell us that it takes twice as long if we do contsant translation as presenters. My feeling is that the earphones cut-off real communication and that the live interaction is much more powerful, even if there is somewhat less information presented. It's the interaction, communication, dialogue, problem-solving and critical conversations that give the session the 'chilito' the spice. One parent told me afterwards that

she absorbed much more without the earphones and that she had copious notes from
the previous sessions but had retained much less information even though
everything presented in English had been translated for her through the
earphones

This is a complex issue that requires more conversation. It also requires enough bilingual presenters willing to take the risk in doing it this way.

So here's the agenda/task sheets.



Mentoring Leaders in Education
ORIENTANDO LÍDERES DENTRO DE LA EDUCACIÓN

Objectives:

To analyze the role of mentoring in leadership development
Analizar el papel de ser mentor en el desarrollo de líderes

To prioritize those aspects of leadership that mentors should focus on
Darle prioridad a los aspectos de ser líder en cuales los mentores deben enfocar

To list the observable outcomes of effective mentoring
Hacer lista de los resultados observables cuando los mentores tienen efecto positivo

To experience the critical aspects of communication to being an effective mentor
Tener una experiencia de los aspectos de comunicación críticos para ser mentor efectivo

To conduct a personal diagnosis of strengths as a mentor and areas that need improvement
Conducir un diagnosis personal de las cualidades positivas como mentor y las áreas que se necesitan mejorar


Agenda

The Role of Mentor
EL PAPEL DE ORIENTADOR

Leader Role Priorities
PRIORIDADES DEL PAPEL DEL LÍDER

Observable Outcomes
RESULTADOS OBSERVABLES

Mentor Communication
LA COMUNICACIÓN DEL ORIENTADOR

Personal Contract
CONTRATO PERSONAL

Warm-up/Rompehielos

Answer the following questions and share the information with your small group.

A mentor is a guide, an advisor and someone who elicits trust.
Un mentor es un guía, un consejero y alguien que inspira confianza.

What is one quality that makes you a good guide?
¿Que es una calidad que lo hace un buen guía?

What is one quality that makes you a good counselor?
¿Que es una calidad que lo hace un buen consejero?

What is one way that you inspire trust and confidence from others?
¿Cual es una manera en que usted inspira confianza en otros?



When everyone in your group has shared, as a group, make a drawing without any words that represents all the positive qualities that you have shared. Everyone has to help with the drawing. Select a person to report on your drawing.
Cuando todos en su grupo hayan compartido sus respuestas a las preguntas, dibujen una representación sin palabras de todas las cualidades positivas que compartieron. Todos tienen que ayudar con el dibujo. Escojan una persona para que de un reporte sobre el dibujo.

The Role of Mentoring In Leadership Development
EL PAPEL DE SER MENTOR EN EL DESARROLLO DE LÍDERES

If I am a mentor to someone who I hope becomes a leader,
Si yo soy mentor para alguien quien yo espero será un líder,


Then my role as a guide is to…
Entonces mí papel como guía es de…

Then my role as an advisor is to…
Entonces mí papel como consejero es de…


Then I must gain their trust by…
Entonces tengo que ganarme su confianza con…






From this list of roles and responsibilities of leadership, select the five most important for mentors to focus on.
De esta lista de papeles y responsabilidades de ser líder escojan las cinco mas importantes para enfocar como mentores.

Roles of Leadership (Just English included here)


Advisor Listens with interest; assimilates information; uses non-directional techniques to bring more information to surface and build relationship of trust; resists impulse to rush in with answers.

Advocate Clarifies and defines problem; focuses attention and action; speaks for and defends the need for change.

Catalyst Sparks and energizes process of change; generates interest, involvement, participation.

Insider Represents and promotes change within an institution/organization; diffuses understanding and positive attitude.

Interface Works to improve relations between interacting groups; diplomat.

Problem-solver/Solution-giver Meets needs with resources and ideas; has appropriate, feasible suggestions addressing needs and problems; knows when and how to present them.

Process-helper Trains and (or) assists groups in working together to analyze problems/needs, find resources, define roles, map path to change and monitor progress.

Resource linker Connects with community organizations, agencies, units of government and human services, and the private sector; works to bring them into effective collaboration with the target group or organization.

Spokesperson Champions issues; speaks well of and for the group; makes effective and articulate presentations; defends need for change.

Supporter Balances need to move toward change (risky and threatening to many) with encouragement and nurturing of individuals engaged in it.

Team member Directs/serves on team initiating change.



Observable Outcomes of Effective Mentoring
RESULTADOS OBSERVABLES QUE INDICAN QUE LOS MENTORES TUVIERON EFECTO


Make a personal list of things you can see or observe that show and indicate that the guidance a person has received has been effective.
Haga una lista personal de cosas que se pueden ver o observar que son indicaciones que la orientación que la persona ha recibido ha sido efectiva.

Listening/Escuchando

Talking/Hablando

Observing/Observando


Personal Contract/ Contrato personal

The session was highly participatory and the participants gave very high marks to the session. This was the last of a series of training sessions that were held this summer. The staff overseeing the program will be identifying what the critical aspects of the content and process of this professional approach are needed to expand the project to a whole school district beyond the eight campuses participating now.

PTA All Committees Weekend

We in PTA still have a way to go in bringing on board those millions of parents whose children are in public schools and who depend on public education to realize the American dream. NeverthelessPTA is the organization, and the PTA members are the people, who have the history and the power for the dream of this democracy to become a reality for all of our children

I'll be in Chicago this weekend for the Membership Committee meeting, officially my first with this group. I've been on the Diversity and Finance committees. I was originally appointed to the National PTA board and now I am an elected member. This is no small thing because, (A) I do not come from the PTA ranks, (B) I'm not PTA polite: in fact diplomacy and politeness are not my strong suites, and (C) In my 40 years of education activism and 30+ in advocating for parent leadership in public education from the poor/minority/non-English-speaking/recent-immigrant communities I had not seen PTA as a natural ally.

BUT, WAIT, SLOW DOWN
and now let me drop in my campaign blurg...

Rooted in Advocacy Reared in Laredo, TX and growing up fluent in Spanish and English, Aurelio began his career as a public high school English teacher in San Felipe High School in Del Rio, Texas in 1964 and has been an activist for equitable schools since then. He continues to advocate for excellent and equitable public schools for all children, specially those that are economically disadvantaged, are of color or speak a language other than English. (For friends who are challenged in pronouncing his first name, one English speaker offered the following: Oh? Really? Oh!)
Professionally Skilled Aurelio is a senior education associate and master trainer with the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA). IDRA is in its 35th year of advocacy for schools that work for all children. He is the lead developer of the organization’s Family Leadership in Education Model. His four-decade professional career has been a mission driven journey in education as teacher, community organizer, curriculum developer, master trainer, and for the last 30 years at IDRA, as an advocate for parent leadership in education. He developed a fully bilingual training-of-trainers model, WOW Workshop on Workshops for educators and parents. Over 200 emerging parent leaders, many who are English-language learners, have participated in that course alone.
Proven Leadership In over 8 years of directing a statewide federally funded Parent Information and Resource Center, Aurelio has led hundreds of workshops, written many articles, participated in conferences and colloquiums and disseminated thousands of pieces of information on Parent Leadership in Education. In 2007 he wrote monthly articles related to parent involvement and No Child Left Behind. Under his leadership, the Texas IDRA PIRC was honored last year as one of five in the nation whose practices and processes were considered exemplary in a Department of Education publication Engaging Parents in Education: Lessons From Five Parental Information and Resource Centers.
Board Experience In the summer of 2006 he was named to the National PTA board as a member-at-large and served on the Diversity Committee. This year he is part of the Finance Committee. He is a member of the Horace Mann M.S. PTA in San Antonio. He is also on the national board for Parents for Public Schools (PPS).
Persistence His strongest recommendation is persistence (40+ years) in advocacy for excellent public schools for all children, and in that battle, supporting parents as the central and strongest advocates for all children to get an excellent and equitable education. Beyond all the training, writing and program development and evaluation he has done, his most cherished skill is the loud and persistent voice for families and children; especially those who most need the benefits and blessings of an accessible, high quality and equitable public education. Graduation for All!
PTA Challenge We in PTA still have a way to go in bringing on board those millions of parents whose children are in public schools and who depend on public education to realize the American dream. Many of the families and schools Aurelio works with in Texas don’t see PTA as a necessary and critical part of their children achieving that dream.
PTA Answer Yet, he believes that PTA is the organization, and the PTA members are the people, who have the history and the power for the dream of this democracy to become a reality for all of our children.

I didn't put my campaign brochure in here to brag. In fact, it was very difficult to run for office because I don't like having to sell myself in that way. The last time I ran for office was in 1959 -- student council parliamentarian -- and I won! I swore never again.
I was encouraged by colleagues, co-workers and friends to run so that the advocacy issues that are important to us would continue to have a national arena and platform.

In my 2-minute speech, and at the convention much hinges on the speech if you are not known to the troops, I chose not to speak much about my qualifications, but rather about the issues I consider important. My emotions got the better of me when I spoke. See my speech notes below:

Buenas Tardes.
I’ve been a teacher since 1964…and have had to reeducate myself constantly.
In the late 60s I realized how my formal education had not taught me to value my community.

20 years later parents reeducated me about communication from school: I asked, “Has school contacted you this year?” one lady responded, “Este año no me han llamado, gracias a dios” They haven’t called me this year, thank God.

Children, their parents and schools! This is the bedrock of PTA’s amazing history.
Over a year ago, I was privileged to walk through the early history of PTA with former national president Lois Jean White. PTA’s courage and valor is needed now!
We need the heft to uplift and defend our Title 1 schools, not-meeting- AYP !

…To provide excellent schools to families hanging on by a thin economic thread.
These families might never be PTA polite nor learn Robert’s rules of order,
yet they’ll continue to tell their children
“educate para que no sufras lo que sufri yo”
get an education so that you don’t suffer what I have gone through.

PTA must persist in creating a public will for equitable funding for all public schools.

PTA must keep schools accountable without penalizing the students and burning out our best teachers…

PTA is the organization, and we are the people who have the history and the power for this American dream to be the reality for all of our children.

Just as the teachers in Appalachia acknowledged the culture of poor white families and created Foxfire…

And as Cesar Chavez & Dolores Huerta encouraged farmworkers and created a union …

As Bob Moses believes that all children can learn math and created the Algebra Project

as Alice McClellan Birney, Phoebe Apperson Hearst…as Selena Sloan Butler advocated for children and families

So we must welcome and become relevant
to the millions of potential PTA members in our communities…
who in their hearts dream “todo nino, una voz” every child one voice…

Let their dreams lead our actions.

I was elected along with my other colleagues on the proposed slate.
Now I've got to really work hard to make sure that the membership of the public school families that are from the poor/minority/non-English-speaking/recent-immigrant communities increases 100fold.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
We will be moved.
Venceremos.
The torch will be passed on.

Welcome, again, 3rd time

Since I'm at 500+ on linked in, I'm going to welcome new people for the third time. I'm new to all this so it'll take a while to get it all functioning. The google dialogue is picking up and more people are giving opinions.

This blog, my maiden voyage into a public journal is an invitation to an online dialogue with others interested in supporting the educational leadership of all families, especially those that are blue-collar, poor, minority, or speak a language other than English. One key premise for me: public schools must flourish. I do not wish to debate that. I champion excellent public schools for all children and equitable resources for public schools; I expect excellent teachers and curriculum for all students.
I'm especially concerned about the schools where economically disadvantaged students predominate (Title 1 schools) and need support for all students to succeed academically. I envision schools where students are prepared for access and success in higher education. I also see it necessary to encourage parent leadership to collaborate with schools and accelerate the movement toward schools work for all children.

Public schools are the first and last venue to keep democracy alive and vibrant and to make the American dream real for families who expect education to provide a future for their children that is better than what they (the parents) have had.

My organization, the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) has advocated for excellent public schools for all children for over 35 years. I am the lead (point person) for parent involvement within my organization. I have been working with schools and organizations on these issues, and have written articles, recorded podcasts and continue to train, speak and advocate for parent leadership in education. I am currently on the National PTA board and also on the national board of Parents for Public Schools (PPS).


I'll be posting specific ideas, concerns and questions.