May 24: Culture of Achievement

Hopes & Fears Pre-Work

As inspired and passionate school leaders, you are positioned to enact change that will powerfully impact the lives of the students you serve. To create and realize your leadership vision, you must visualize your dream and overcome your personal barriers. In the spirit of supporting your leadership development, the focus of this assignment is for you to reflect on what you are ready to release and what you are ready to embrace.

Please Bring: A one sentence response to each of the questions listed below. As you reflect on your greatest fear, consider what "keeps you up at night". As you reflect on your greatest hope, think about what ignites the passion and purpose in your leadership. On a separate piece of paper for each, please write your answer to the following questions:

• What is the greatest fear you face as a leader, and how is it holding you back from fulfilling your leadership vision?

• What is the greatest hope you have as a leader in the year ahead?

Intellectual Tradition and Legacy

Framework: Culture of Achievement as defined by Dr. Theresa Perry

Think and Make Meaning: As you read these frameworks, consider:

• What is the core argument or idea that each author advances? What need or gap does she seek to address in the research?

• What implications for practice in schools does this research have?

• In what ways are the frameworks resonant or dissonant with one another? What practices are overlapping? Distinct?

Read: Young, Gifted, and Black by Theresa Perry

• "Up from the Parched Earth: Toward A Theory of African-American Achievement" (Pp. 1-10)

• In part 1 at the end, read “Reflections on the Narratives” (49-51)

• In part 2, read from "Black Immigrants, Immigrants of Color, and African Americans to the end of part 2 (71-86)

• Implications for Practice to end of part 3 (middle 100-108).

Read: “Towards a Definition of a Culture of Achievement” by Dr. Theresa Perry

Think and Make Meaning: After grappling with the frameworks themselves, read or watch the examples provided of those ideas in action and consider:

• • To what extent and in what ways is this an example of the framework (Culture of Achievement or Asset Pedagogies)?

  • What beliefs and/or practices contributed to the example?

  • Which indicators are evident in the example?

Examples of Cultures of Achievement

Read: Their Highest Potential by Vanessa Siddle Walker. - Introduction, Chapters 4-6, Afterword

Read: “Literacy in the Academic Disciplines and the Needs of Adolescent Struggling Readers”.

Watch: Underwater Dreams

Watch: Askwith Forum, Walker, “Black Educators and the Struggle for Justice in Schools”

Watch: Askwith Forum, Jackson, “Chicago Public Schools, A Transformation Story”

Grapple and Question: As you engage with these frameworks, please generate questions the materials raise for you. Share at least one of your questions with us through this google form by Monday, May 23, 2022 at 3:00pm. Questions will be screened for use during the facilitated Q&A after each scholar’s presentation. Feel free to submit more than one question and to submit as many times as you would like.