Embedded Files
Overview of Advocacy in the Abstract
Overview of Advocacy in the Abstract
Transformational teachers directly instruct on advocacy. Students have knowledge of injustice in the world, have informed opinions about it, and know that their voice and actions have value. They can advocate for themselves and others. I created multiple opportunities for my students to learn about injustices that affect them especially and offered them information enabling them to fashion informed opinions about these matters. My instruction around advocacy was greatly augmented by a conference convened at Johns Hopkins University under the auspices of Teach for America (TFA). This student advocacy/leadership conference featured dynamic speakers who ranged from distinguished educators, community activists and actual students in the area who were engaged in various organizational efforts in their schools and indeed across the nation. My students were able to interact with these students and established social connections that may prove fruitful in the future. Further, I was confirmed by this conference in my incipient intention to compel my students to construct personal health biographies as a means of becoming their own 'health advocates', gaining thereby insight into important health issues that impact their lives.
Valuable Instruction in Advancing Student Advocacy
Valuable Instruction in Advancing Student Advocacy
In my Seminar Course in this program, candidates were given the opportunity to attend a Teach for America (Baltimore) conference that aimed to inform educators how to encourage their students to be more effective advocates both individually and socially. Given what I perceived to be the tremendous potential of this assembly for my pupils, I successfully petitioned the Committee to permit me to sponsor a total of four students (instead of the customary limit of two). I made this request with two pupils in mind that I knew would profit particularly from this opportunity (as elaborated in the subsequent part of this Section). The artifact (below) captures my communication with the said Committee. This conference had a tremendous impact upon my students, as each would go on to assume leadership positions in school and in other areas of their extra-curricular life. It was also a valuable experience for me, as it showed me additional avenues via which to advocate for my students and support their own self-advocacy.
TFA Student Advocacy & Leadership Conference Correspondence
TFA Student Advocacy & Leadership Conference Correspondence
The above artifact is email correspondence with the committee coordinating the conference on student advocay, wherein I am granted my request to sponsor two additional students.
Advocay Conference (TFA).pdfAdvocacy & Leadership Conference
Advocacy & Leadership Conference
An excerpt of workshops offered at the Conference.
TFA Student Advocacy & Leadership Conference Workshops
TFA Student Advocacy & Leadership Conference Workshops
The description of the workshops offered at the Student Advocacy Conference sponsored by TFA immediately brought to mind several students who could benefit greatly therefrom. Knowing the typical limit of taking two students, I was elated to be able to accommodate four. Two of my students are seriously interested in social activism, social media and digital journalism. The "Using Media Campaign to Create Social Change" workshop was therefore ideal for these incipient activists. Another two of my students are interested in leadership and advocacy yet ironically exhibit extreme introversion, a disinclination to speak in public and a reluctance to initiate social interaction. Both had made admirable efforts to directly and deliberately confront these limitations to their own advocatory and social ambitions. The latter workshop, "The Power of Networking" was obviously ideal for these fledling leaders. My predictions proved precient. One of my students who attended the Media Campaign workshop would come to secure a paid position at the school assisting with software and media maintanance and operation and another would be elected Class Prefect and come to represent the petition of his peers to create the health and fitness extra-curricular club among other advocatory successes. All immensely enjoyed this direct instruction in advocacy that supplemented (and improved) my own instructional efforts in the area of individual advocacy.
Student Biographies
Student Biographies
Student Biography Instructions.docxStudent Biographies
Student Biographies
A Project whose purpose was to give my students a voice by enabling them to disclose important aspects of their lives.
Student Biography Presentation
Student Biography Presentation
Student delivering oral presentation of personal biography.
Student Biographies: Advocacy Through Awareness
Student Biographies: Advocacy Through Awareness
A partial etymology of the word advocate is from the word advocare, whose meaning in post-classical Latin, according to The Oxford English Dictionary, is the action of calling on or invoking, guardianship, protection, or patronage. I certainly conceive of myself as the guardian, protector, and patron of my pupils and I have taken my role of invoking of literally 'giving a voice to' my students very seriously. There is no lesson plan or lecture that I have executed that does not encompass these ideals explicitly or implicitly. In one particular project I prompted my students to give voice to important aspects of their lives in an autobiographical vein. This project (Health Biographies), having been conceptualized in outline for some time, took definite shape in consequence of the student advocacy conference referenced above.
The accompanying artifact describes the objectives of the Health Biographies project to my students. I deemed it important to disclose my personal interest in this project and I emphasized in my discourses with students the opportunity that such a project afforded for extending learning outside of the classroom and for applying scientific knowledge to one’s own life. Due to the potentially emotionally-laden nature of the information I was eliciting, I elected to make the assignment optional, offering additional credit to students who completed it satisfactorily. [I subsequently modified the critera, accepting students' expositions on any of the five topic areas enumerated.]
Student Biography Presentation
Student Biography Presentation
The biographaies of my students made me aware of the the obstacles that they confront on a daily basis and the degee to which they are conscious of the injustices that undermine their advancement and flourishing. In the accompanying artifact my student is sharing his experience in having a speech impediment, how he has had to overcome this limitation and how my sharing of my own success in overcoming stuttering in childhood was a source of strength and inspiration to him. As shall be related in the subsequent section, this same shy, introverted, stuttering student was selected as School Prefect and represented his class in petitioning for a fittness club. He is an exemplary case of the dualistic (individual/collective) advocacy that I sought to facilitate and model for my students.
Optimal Health Preparatory Presentation.pptxOptimal Health: Preparatory Presentation
Optimal Health: Preparatory Presentation
This artifact is an element of the instruction I provided my students on principles of health in preparation for their health biography assignment.
Optimal Health: Preparatory Presentation
Optimal Health: Preparatory Presentation
This lesson/presentation is among a series delivered to my students. It was intended to provide them grounding in basic principles of health promotion and enable them augment their own health awareness. The discussions accompanying the presentation addressed perceived health inequities and provided information affirming the ability to adopt a healthy diet with modest means, thereby demonstrating how adequate information can be empowering and eradicate (or mitigate) inequities in health.
The Central Nervous System [Amen-Ra].docxLesson on the Central Nervous System & Advocacy
Lesson on the Central Nervous System & Advocacy
This lesson is linked to several on systems of the body, knowledge critical to informed health enhancement and health advocacy.
Advocacy Necessitates Knowledge
Advocacy Necessitates Knowledge
This abstract was discussed in the lesson above and served as one source of information for my students as they advocated for the appropriateness of their practice of fasting to their parent(s).
Foundational Lessons on Optimal Health & Health Advocacy
Foundational Lessons on Optimal Health & Health Advocacy
This is one among several lessons that presented my students with fundamental information in the realm of anatomy and physiology and provided them a framework for understanding the relationship between basic biology and the incorporation of increasingly technical information that can ultimately be applied to the enhancement of their health. More specifically, the discussion that ensued surrounding the analysis of the scientific abstract featured herein led to a profitable excursion into the cognitive-enhancing effects of fasting and a flurry of questions concerning my own health practices, which entails daily fasting for 23 hours each day. That I abstain from eating during the day that many of my students had already made and expressed an interest in learning more about. The abstract provided a vehicle to satisfy their curiosity in a way consistent with the content of the lesson and my teaching philosophy which emphasizes the 'translational' aspect of science. The homework assignment accompanying this lesson presented my pupils with a perspective on advocacy, duly defining and contextualizing the concept. It further entailed practical advocacy, impelling them to address an argument for their own support (actual or intellectual) for practicing fasting and caloric restriction. This conjunction of theory and practice is a prominent part of my pedagocal practice.
Advocacy Necessitates Knowledge
Advocacy Necessitates Knowledge
This abstract (left) formed the basis for a lengthy discussion accompanying the lesson illustrated above. Despite the technicality of the summary, students exhibited an understanding of the basic information and the implications thereof as exhibited by their questions. Inquiries were made about the relationship between depression and cognition, the manner in which neurons are altered by diet, depression, learning and exercise and the role of the neurotrophic molecule (BDNF) mentioned in the abstract and how its levels are influenced by fasting. Several students were inclined to question the veracity of the conventional admonition (offered by parents, teachers, and administrators alike) to eat an ample breakfast to provide sufficient fuel for the brain. This and similar instances of prompted me to impress upon my students the necessity of acquiring scientific literacy in order to be a competent and effective advocate in the interest of one's own health, for individuals in authority are often incorrect.
Video: Practical Lessons on Ensuring Optimal Health
Video: Practical Lessons on Ensuring Optimal Health
This video is a presentation that provided my students foundational information on the implementation of a sustainable, healthy lifestyle and prompted advocacy efforts on their part.
Vegan Strongman Brainstorming Discussion.pdfPost-Video Guided Discussion
Post-Video Guided Discussion
Transcript of discussion following viewing of the Vegan Strongman video.
Video: Practical Lessons on Ensuring Optimal Health
Video: Practical Lessons on Ensuring Optimal Health
Transformational teachers model the behavior they desire their students to adopt. I have made this a central tenet of my pedagogic philosophy and practice. It is inadequate to argue or advocate for positions or actions that one is not prepared to implement in one's own life, I maintain.
My students expressed an overwhelming interest exploring my personal approach to health enhancement and my own 'health biography'. I felt compelled to comply with their reasonable request, viewing this as an opportunity to fortify their efforts to advocate for resources and freedom to make improvements in their own health.
The accompanying video was included in a lesson on nutrtion and stimulated several subsequent discussions. The video, lessons, and discussions inclined my students to seek my guidance in their advocation of the optimal health/fitness club to be described more fully in the second component of this section.
Post-Video Guided Discussion
Post-Video Guided Discussion
Following the presentation of the video above, I led my students in a guided discussion centering upon ways that they could advocate for the improvement of their own health. We discussed perceptions of their health and inequities and limitations that undermine their attainment of optimal health. I encouraged them to advocate for dietary improvements in their homes and school and provided practical ideas that would enable them to implement such lifestyle practices as elaborated in the video. In so doing, I underscored the potential profitability of personal self-advocacy and collective advocacy, calling for collaboration with their fellow classmates to bring about a change benifical to all. The artifact (left) is an edited transcript of the discussion that I convend following the video presentation.
Student Health Biography Sample.pdfSample of Student Work on Health Biography
Sample of Student Work on Health Biography
The work of a student who elected to write about his mother's death due to an aneurysm.
This artifact of student work, appertaining to the Health Biographies Project, illustrates a definite understanding of a real world issue and shows his appreciation for his own potential susceptibility to the condition to which his mother succumbed. Such understanding serves as an intellectual foundation for self-advocacy, insofar as it permits lifestyle modifications through access to relevant health information.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse