Welcome & Student Presentation | PBL World 2019

my name is Dinah bekhten Consuegra and I am honoured and thrilled to be your MC for PBL world I am the director partnership development here and I'd like to encourage folks to hop on twitter follow me hashtag PBL works 20:19 actually its PBL works 19 as you go through your day we'd love to read our Twitter feed PBL powerful beyond life it's a powerful acronym isn't it how many of you have students who've been more engaged as a result of PBL raise your hand great look around that's the experience we want for all of our students for them to feel touched for them to be part of authentic learning but unfortunately that is not the world we live in and there are many of our students who are still not able to access or have PBL how many of you have those students in your school's students that cannot access PBL are not engaged as a result are still being left out raise your hand great so today I have a call for you I want us to embrace the fragility of hope I'm going to be telling you a story of our current world and I just want you to remember these words so if you look at student engagement throughout their journey from k12 you'll see this that as students go through their journey engagement drops connected to this or chronic absenteeism defined as 15 or more days absent in a given school year and you see this impacting native Pacific Islander black and Latina students in particular with these rates we know that school discipline is connected to this Prison Pipeline and we have three student black students are three times more likely to be expelled or suspended from school and subsequently three times more likely to have encounters with the juvenile justice system in the following year we know that black men are one in three times likely to spend time in prison throughout their lifetime and Latino men have a one in six chance of spending time in prison I know this pipeline well I am the oldest daughter of three children I have two younger brothers who had a very different trajectory than I did my middle brother spent many years in prison and my youngest brother went to five different high schools before ultimately dropping out and getting his GED years later I carry this burden on my shoulders every day as I look into the eyes of my two young sons and I often wonder the same thing that my friend and mentor Carlos Moreno does well demographics also impact their destiny and if you look at projections in our population from 2014 to 2060 you'll see these numbers most notably a drop in the white population and a spike in the Latino population by 2060 it is projected that we'll have 65% students of color in our schools our much minority will become our minority yet what we're seeing is that white school districts are getting twenty three billion dollars more than school that districts serving students of color with the same number of students I know what you're all thinking man that's about 23 Jay Z's so I just want to shout out Jay Z for being hip hop's first billionaire and if we look at college enrollment rates we see that black and Latina students make up about 36% of the population yet if you look at these numbers what we're seeing is that forty five percent of black students and thirty five percent of Latino students are dropping out during their course of their six year journey and this goes beyond college if you look at income and wealth we see that black families are making ten times less than white families I want to take this time now to show you and tell you a couple of stories that prove that demographics do not impact destiny I want to tell you about Jonathan Luna one of my students when I was principal at Locke Tech High School in watts Jonathan Luna came to this country at age 12 with his mother he crossed the Arizona desert not speaking a word of English he arrived in watts enrolled in our school and the summer of his ninth grade his family moved away but that did not stop Jonathan from commuting waking up at 4 a.m. and commuting two hours each way to get to our school five years later he was able to finish as class valedictorian so when you hear stories like this you can't help but get fired up about the power of changing our destiny I want to also tell you about our PBL champion this year Billy Martinez Elementary a school with 90 percent Latino students in 92 percent free and reduced lunch Billy Martinez was in 2017 spent four years on Colorado's department of education accountability clock meaning that they sat in bottom-2 accreditation ratings for their state one more year on this clock would have meant they either had to shut down or convert to charter but they've been implementing PBL for three years now and just last year they were ranked by the board as a school of innovation proof that change comes through PBL last year we trained twenty six thousand eight hundred and ten teachers through our workshops for those of you wondering that is the size of nineteen times the audience that we have here this morning just last year and over time this is our impact PBL has so much potential when it's offered to everyone and ensuring that all students get access to PBL is all of our business it is our calling our challenge and our urgency every day when I wake up I choose to stand for students that look like me I choose to fight I choose to advocate to make sure that all classroom doors can open up to the power found through PBL we must choose to be a force for change we must all wrestle with our fears roll up our sleeves and do what needs to be done for the children this is a pipeline that often results in fatal consequences for our students yeah we have to face it and do the work of disrupting systems that were designed to do the very things you saw in these stats that I pointed out I'd like to now introduce you to some students that are doing the work with us and they're going to help us face this together but before I do this I'd like to tell you a little bit about their project last year a group of students from Tamm High School in Marin embarked on a journey to make a documentary they chose to tell a story about Ralph Bunch in West Auckland and here is their story imagine a world where your third grade reading level can tell you whether you'll end up in prison where your race determines whether you'll be kicked out of school where your record means you won't be helped and where no one believes in you now stop imagining because that's the reality for thousands of students in Oakland California because of their race and their lower socioeconomic standpoint these students are prone to trauma from a very young age say for example they have an incarcerated parent trauma like that can often lead to the development of behavioral issues which in turn can cause students to be suspended or expelled from school based on zero-tolerance policies these policies target even minor nonviolent offenses and because they can be somewhat arbitrarily enforced and also because of conscious or subconscious racial bias they overwhelmingly target black and Latino students being suspended in ninth grade doubles your likelihood of dropping out and high school dropouts make up 68 percent of the federal prison population being connected to the criminal justice system in that way exacerbates trauma and surrounding communities of color which in turn is more likely to lead to behavioral problems and kids and so more suspensions and expulsions this phenomenon is commonly called the school to Prison Pipeline but as you can see it's less aligned than a vicious cycle it's a national emergency and worse it's a local emergency too this is Ralph J Bunche well this is Ralph J Bunche but this is the Oakland high school named after him on the outside bunch might look like any other school but behind its gate something special is happening I got tired of seeing kids kicked out of school got tired of seeing kids not listened to not being understood nobody caring as to whether they become successful or not this is principal Betsy Steele for the past decade she's led the effort to introduce programs at bunch which aimed to stop the school to Prison Pipeline programs called restorative justice restorative justice is not so much a subset of justice as a different view of it entirely instead of just identifying an offender and coming up with a punishment everyone involved in an incident the offender and the victim and anyone from the surrounding community can sit down and discuss it why did this happen who was hurt what can we do to fix it I would define restorative justice as a process a tool and a way of working with individuals and families and communities to become a whole people but she takes a whole school approach to restorative justice meaning that the fundamentals of it are rolled in to everything that happens here it's not just something they do it's almost who they are and that's because we're stored if justice emphasizes community and relationships you build each other up instead of tearing each other down and maybe that sounds corny but you can feel the impact of this when you walk into bunch people are so close with each other it's so tight-knit high school we didn't average sort of justice and that's kind of why I'm here two years ago me I wouldn't like been sitting here calm you know I was really like mean and rude to people because of stuff that was like bottled up inside me but being here like I can express myself I'm in culinary class are you another chocolate I used the time I mom you have to feed me surprise in my life I'm never get a job but now I have a job I'm getting ready to go to culinary school I have job offers for culinary because of bunch you're welcome we have to get them into a skilled track or a destination track it's called work based learning so they learn the skills of work before they go into the workplace because once they get into the workplace of challenges that they're gonna run into already just being children of color or phenomenal leaders at bunch are doing everything they can not only to get kids off the school-to-prison pipeline but to get them ready for the world beyond high school they provide students with college and career training opportunities for internships and artisan programs like this one someone didn't tempura enough to melted or maybe it's just your heart programs like this are a part of a story of justice - besides engaging kids in school they also give students a space to express themselves take punches music class where students write record and produce their own songs baby I'm really feeling like who the can I trust not a soul live it feeling like I'm losing it judging alcohol bad things I've been using it I ain't going back and forth with you on that confusing that was a bar that's cool you cuss it too much what do you say that once to three not four that's too many times you guys you guys you gotta go deeper go deeper get you know you got you a lyricist you a poet think I know a lot of kids that go here it was it's like other things before they got here that wasn't gonna get them nowhere in life just one boy last year he graduated with a 4.0 and he had a zero by zeros there at his last school so bunch of doing something for us I say to change change lives the emergency of the school to Prison Pipeline isn't something that we can solve overnight it's not just what happens that needs to be changed it's why why does a student act out why do we target black and Latino students over others why do we punish instead of heal schools as they exist or not working and they're especially not working for our children so there's a lot of work to be done miles to go before arrest miles [Music] I'd like to now welcome to the stage the students who made this documentary and the students featured in this documentary come on up thank you I just wanted to make sure they saw the standing ovation so I was just did you see you just look at the audience so thank you all for being here during your summer breaks we really really really appreciate your time and that you're having a conversation with us so I'd like to first ask our Tam students tell us a little bit about this project and what led you to making this documentary sure can everyone hear me great if you can introduce yourselves in your grade before you talk that would be great and so me and Paige are in a program called aim where we make short documentaries every semester based on a prompt given to us by our teachers and this past year our prompt was state of emergency and when I heard that I really wanted to bring a topic to my group that I felt was important for us to learn and for our classmates to learn in our community to learn and for me that's really the inequalities that I see within my community around race and so I thought that the school Prison Pipeline which I had been introduced to a couple years ago by a teacher would be a really important thing to show to my group members and my classmates because it's so prevalent everywhere in our society and I mean I don't think the people around me even knew what it was I didn't know what it was until someone pointed it out to me and I think that's that's really something that we lack not just as students but as just general community members we need to know about this and so we set out to make a documentary about the school to Prison Pipeline and then introduce restorative justice as as a tool to possibly stop this pipeline but as we learned more about the Oakland Unified School District and bunch in particular we realize how important restorative justice is not just to stop the cycle of the school to Prison Pipeline but to really improve communities and improve lives and we were so moved by the school by their work and resort of Justice that that was what we really felt like we needed to focus on and bring back to our community great thank you this question is for the bunch students talk us through how it felt to go through this documentary and what the journey was like the journey for this video was like really amazing because we have people outside of our school district come in and see like what we do on a daily basis and like how our school function and they were really interested so I appreciate you guys for that they came into our classroom and they were really like motivated to like see what we do at our school and making the video was really cool because they came to our volleyball practice they came to our culinary class they try some our candy like we really have fun making this video thank you and can you introduce yourself to the audience I'm Julia Ambrose I'm a senior at Ralph J Bunche thank you this next question is for all of you what would you like this audience to know about your school and community that you felt was not featured in this documentary my name is Paige Hart Quist I hope everyone can hear me yeah okay I'm also a junior at Timnath Heights High School but through this experience we went to RJ bunch and we like experienced firsthand you know this completely different approach to learning with restorative justice and it created a way better environment in their school and it included every student and their personal needs and it opened my eyes and I think my other group members eyes to like how much my school can improve we're a part of this predominantly white bubble in Marin and a lot of the time issues regarding you know students of color or students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are ignored are not taking us seriously and we really hope that our documentary can bring or shed like light on this issue that maybe isn't recognized as much because the school-to-prison pipeline is a really prevalent issue in our community but a lot of other communities and it's not really being seen and I think that's really important to create equal education for every student [Applause] hi I'm Timothy suis Allah I forgot the question because of all you beautiful people out here thank you for coming it's what do you want them to know about your school er community that was not featured in the documentary okay what I would want people to know about the documentary is that Ralph J Bunche built a community restorative justice built the community it wasn't teacher to student but it was a person to person and that's why I liked about it thank you this next question is also for both sets of students so having both gone through project-based learning at your school what what's the secret sauce like what do you feel is is so powerful about PBL so hi I'm Lisa I'm a senior I was a senior at time I graduated last week thank you I think project-based learning like you touched on earlier dinah is so much more engaging for students just because we're able to become completely immersed in one topic and we're able to go out and learn about it hands-on like we did with this documentary and that's just not something that you can get from inside a classroom and so whereas conventional curriculum like textbook learning classroom learning I find that tends to emphasize like traditional academic skills like research writing studying whereas with project-based learning you get that and you get a whole nother arsenal of other skills because when you're interacting with the topic in that way it kind of changes how you're looking at it and it changes how you're thinking critically about it and how you're looking at what's happening around you and so you end up with what I feel is a much broader skill set because with making these documentaries we've learned like Paige nunu and I we've learned to work collaboratively with each other we've gone and visited places and met people that we otherwise never would have met and so we've learned to communicate with people who were come from completely different backgrounds than we do so that's really valuable as well and then also just like the rudimentary skills of filmmaking because aim has inspired me to pursue him in college next year so I already have a really strong foundation of all these skills like how to operate a camera how to operate editing software how to conduct an interview so that's really great for me and those are really valuable skills in any career any other projects that we might do so yeah elevator pitch I think project-based learning gives you like a much broader much more solid skill set than just conventional learning thank you I think learning is good for our school because where we go a lot of people here continuation school and they think like everybody is just like a bad student you know we just don't do anything but like we've done so many projects throughout our community with our school that I feel like it's going to help us in the long run we did a pop-up restaurant and at our school because we have a culinary program and our goal was $6,000 all the students in my class we got together we made all the food and we made ten thousand dollars as a project I feel like credit based learning is important because like we get hands-on and we can just like you know do what we would love to do we also passed out food to the homeless we've done since I've been a bunch we've done to Thanksgiving dinners where we invite the community to come out and have dinner with us and the students cook the whole meal so yeah I feel like project-based learning is really important because it like helps us with what we want to do in our life instead of just like right now in a classroom thank you my last question for the students this morning is what advice would you give these 1,400 educators and leaders about what students most need in classrooms in schools today just to keep in mind that for a lot of us for a lot of students school is basically our second home so it's really important that students are approached holistically and that we're helped to grow not just academically but also as individuals and also that like one type of education doesn't excuse me the one type of education doesn't work for everybody so to keep in mind how education can be built around students and what students need instead of the other way around you go oh yeah which way you want to go [Music] so the advice I would like to give these people over here educators is to not only look at it through teacher to student but person to person that is a person it's not just a student you're doing something to their lives you're inspiring them and you want them to succeed so from a person to person make them feel at home a community they want that they need that that's what we need community thank you [Applause] my advice to the teachers would be to like love what you do like students can tell when you don't want to be in a classroom with that we can tell so I would say just love what you do like actually put passion behind the work that you give us or the work that you give your students actually engage with the students like our coach is here with us right now and he's been with us since day one he coach is amazing he teaches sports but he also teaches like the stuff that we need in life so just make sure you love what you're doing all right thank you again students another round of applause for the students that were here with us this morning [Applause]

Channel: PBLWorks

Views: 1,813

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: cs1c1nY9A08

Length: 27min 19sec (1639 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 12 2019