Building a Culture of Hope: Enriching Schools With Optimism and Opportunity (School Improvement Strategies for Overcoming Student Poverty and Adversity) - Softcover

Robert Barr; Emily L. Gibson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1936764628 ISBN 13: 9781936764624

Publisher: Solution Tree, 2013

Synopsis

Research demonstrates that children of poverty need more than just academic instruction to succeed. Discover a school-improvement blueprint for teaching resilience and turning low-performing schools into cultures of hope. The authors draw from their own experiences working with high-poverty, high-achieving schools to illustrate how to support students with an approach that considers social as well as emotional factors in education.

Understand how poverty affects education and how creating a positive school culture can help:

• Understand the relevance of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and positive psychology in K-12 education.
• Discover tested strategies behind the success of high-poverty, high-achieving schools in closing the achievement gap.
• Learn how to create intrinsic motivation for students impacted by adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and support them in overcoming learned helplessness.
• Access surveys that gauge the temperature of your school's culture.
• Integrate the world of jobs and professional careers into academic curriculum.
• Support students with tools to envision and plan for the future.
• Define processes for building consensus and increasing collaboration among teachers and school leadership.

Contents:
Introduction

Part One: An Apartheid of Ignorance
Chapter 1. Poverty Is No Excuse
Chapter 2. The Tragedy of High School Dropouts
Chapter 3. A Culture of Hope

Part Two: The Four Seeds of Hope
Chapter 4. A Sense of Optimism
Chapter 5. A Sense of Belonging
Chapter 6. A Sense of Pride, Self-Esteem, and Self-Confidence
Chapter 7. A Sense of Purpose

Part Three: Implementing a Culture of Hope
Chapter 8. The Power of "We"
Chapter 9. A Culture of Hope at the High School Level
Chapter 10. Hope Fulfilled

Appendix A: Methodologies of the Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report Studies
Appendix B: Surveys of Students and Staff
Glossary
References and Resources
Index

About this title

About the Author:

Robert D. Barr, PhD, is recognized as one of the nation's leading experts on reaching and teaching children of poverty and minority students and helping high-poverty schools become high-performing ones. He is an educator, speaker, author, and emeritus analyst with the Boise State University Center for School Improvement. Bob has keynoted hundreds of state, regional, national, and international conferences and has provided workshops for schools, school districts, and state departments of education in every area of the United States. He has helped high-poverty schools in more than forty states improve student performance.

Escaping poverty and realizing the American dream are a part of Bob's personal story. His grandparents were migrant workers, and the overriding values of his family were hard work, thrift, and the abiding belief that if you kept at it, life would get better. When Bob was in the fifth grade, he cashed in his school bank account so the family could use the forty-eight dollars to buy a mule. Through hard work and sacrifice, his parents saved enough to buy an acre of land, then eight acres, and finally, their dream, a 150-acre ranch in the cedar breaks and rolling hills of Glen Rose, Texas.

Bob has been selected for the National School Boards Association's prestigious Meet the Expert sessions at their national conferences twelve times and has received three national awards for distinguished achievement. He has been a guest on the PBS program Firing Line, the ABC Evening News, and the Fox television show The O'Reilly Factor and has been quoted in The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. In addition, he has provided expert testimony to the US Congress and a number of state legislatures and often serves as an expert trial witness.

Bob has served as professor and director of teacher education at Indiana University, dean of the Oregon State University College of Education, and dean of the Boise State University College of Education.

Emily L. Gibson, EdD, is a teacher-consultant with the Redwood Writing Project, providing professional development in writing and literacy instruction for K-college teachers in Humboldt County, California. With over 20 years in public education, she is an experienced K-8 instructional coach, classroom teacher, and alternative-education instructional leader. She established the Young Writer Programs for the Redwood Writing Project, and implemented writing workshops for the Osher Life-Long Learning Institute at Humboldt State University.

Dr. Gibson provides professional development for teachers with an emphasis on improving school culture and transitioning to the Common Core State Standards. An author, she has also written articles for Education Leadership and Equity & Excellence in Education. Her research interests include equity and access to higher education, school culture, school improvement, teacher education, writing and mathematics instruction, and social and emotional aspects of learning.

She holds BAs in liberal studies and psychology and an MA in education from Humboldt State University. Dr. Gibson earned an EdD in curriculum and instruction, emphasizing school improvement, from Boise State University.

Review:

"In the era of high-stakes testing and accountability ratings, Barr and Gibson provide educators with a much-needed dose of humanity. This book does more than provide a shot in the arm for schools and students who lack hope; it provides a theory, structure, and methodology for any school struggling to inspire under-served students." --
Anthony Muhammad, educational consultant, author of Transforming School Culture and The Collaborative Administrator

"All children, regardless of race or wealth, want to feel safe and secure, to be loved and experience a sense of belonging, and to become competent and capable. As educators, our moral obligation is to create the context and conditions to meet these universal needs so that each of our graduates is college, career, and life ready. Bob Barr and Emily Gibson provide a pragmatic road map for systemically building a culture of hope in our public schools and classrooms. Today, more than ever, we need new constructs that connect people, purpose, and passion through transformative practices, recognizing the interdependency of relationships and results." --
Steven T. Webb, superintendent, Vancouver (WA) Public Schools

"If we don't believe that the American dream is dying, this important book reminds us it is chronically ill. Barr and Gibson highlight the tragic failure of education to respond to the growing achievement gap between rich and poor, then give us clear directions for turning those schools into gateways out of poverty. Take an honest look around. Then use some of the authentic instruments and surveys in this essential resource. The time for action is now." --
Alan Boyle, director, Leannta Education Associates

About this edition

• Publisher: Solution Tree
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1936764628
• ISBN 13: 9781936764624
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288