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Posts by Paul Costello1

Deeply Affected by the Pandemic, Youth Are Committed to Helping Others

March 16, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Coronavirus and young people: How is COVID-19 affecting millennials?

July 14, 2020

Young people in America have been hit hard by COVID-19, but they’re taking action to help their communities and it’s influencing their political views and engagement.

Young people in America have been uniquely and disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in ways that may both hinder and reshape their participation in civic life. Most K-12 schools and universities have either closed or transitioned to an online learning format, which has usually entailed reduced in-classroom time and diminished educational opportunities. Unemployment rates for young people in the labor force are the highest ever recorded. Social distancing measures have also inhibited peer-to-peer contact and relationship-building among young people, which are key pathways for civic growth and identity development.

However, CIRCLE’s new national poll of young Americans finds that, in spite of these challenges, young people have stepped up to meet the moment. Though they face drastic economic hardships, they still feel motivated to engage in activism and in the upcoming election. Our polling data also demonstrate that, as young people are adapting to the new realities of life under COVID-19, they need support to help them thrive during this unprecedented crisis. The poll highlights the need to apply an equity lens to these efforts: policymakers, campaigns, and other stakeholders in the ecosystem of electoral engagement must focus especially on young people of color in order to minimize the inequitable impacts of the pandemic and to ensure youth of all backgrounds can fully tap into their civic potential.

Top findings from our recent poll include:

  • Two-thirds of young people report feeling moderately or significantly economically affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and 46 percent of Black youth not in school report being unemployed.
  • Young people have stepped up to the plate to help their communities: two in three young people have fact-checked information about the coronavirus, and 30% of youth have made masks to protect others.
  • Young people strongly disapprove of the federal government’s response, and the youth who have paid the most attention to the pandemic are the most interested in engaging in the upcoming election.

About the Poll: The first wave of the CIRCLE/Tisch College 2020 Youth Survey was fielded from May 20 to June 18, 2020. The survey covered adults between the ages of 18 and 29 who will be eligible to vote in the United Stated by the 2020 General Election. The sample was drawn from the Gallup Panel, a probability-based panel that is representative of the U.S. adult population, and from the Dynata Panel, a non-probability based panel. A total of 2,232 eligible adults completed the survey, which includes oversamples of 18- to 21-year-olds (N=671), Asian American youth (N=306), Black youth (N=473), Latino youth (N=559) and young Republicans (N=373). Of the total completed surveys, 1,019 were from the Gallup Panel and 1,238 were from the Dynata Panel. Unless stated otherwise, ‘youth’ refers to those aged 18-to 29 years old. The margin of error for the poll, taking into account the design effect associated with the Gallup Panel is +/- 4.1 percentage points. Margins of error for racial and ethnic subgroups range from +/-8.1 to 11.0 percentage points.

Young People Have Stepped Up During the Pandemic

Over the past six months, the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed many dimensions of young people’s lives in America—creating even broader disparities and adverse consequences that schools, youth-serving organizations, and other community leaders will need to address. Our polling data demonstrate many of the ways in which young people have adjusted to this new normal and how their behaviors and attitudes toward engagement within their communities have shifted.

Young people have felt the negative economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two-thirds (66%) of say that COVID-19 has had a moderate or significant impact on their economic situations, and only 13% say it’s had no impact at all. For young workers, half of whom are employed by the service industry, layoffs have hit particularly hard. Almost 3 in 10 youth report not being employed in full- or part-time work, and that rate is even higher (33%) for the youngest adults (ages 18-24).

The pandemic has also created many other challenges for young people. While youth in our poll were evenly split on whether COVID-19 has decreased (39%) or increased (37%) their daily responsibilities, there were differences among youth in school and in the workforce. Youth who were not employed in full- or part-time work were more likely to say they had more free time (44%), as did young people who were attending school. In contrast, youth who still had a job said that the pandemic actually increased their responsibilities (40%) compared to those who saw a decrease (37%).

While youth who are still employed may feel added stress from working remotely or taking on additional tasks at work, those who are not engaged in work or school may struggle to find productive ways to spend their time. These burdens likely compound for the over 7 million youth who are also parents, 5 million of whom were in the labor force as of this March, according the Census Current Population Survey (CPS). Parents of young children have reported feeling burned out due to school closures, limited childcare options, and the pressure to juggle remote work and childcare duties

Whatever their time commitments, young people seem to be inspired by this crisis to engage in activism. The vast majority (84%) of youth in our poll said that young people like themselves can do helpful things for their communities during these times. That belief has resulted in COVID-related civic activism. We asked about eight actions that young people could take to help others during the pandemic, and 93% of young people said they had performed at least one, including 38% of youth who had performed five or more. For instance, two in five youth have either worked as poll workers or would do so if given the opportunity—potentially substituting for the many elderly poll workers who, because of the pandemic, may not be able to take on those duties on Election Day.

Despite reports to the contrary, young people are also leading the way on safety efforts: over 80% of youth maintain social distance and wear masks, and 30% have made masks to help protect others. Finally, young people seem to be pitching in to provide family and friends with guidance on how to approach the pandemic. Over two-thirds of youth have fact-checked information about the coronavirus, and a quarter of all youth have translated health information for family and friends, including 35% of Latino youth.

As past CIRCLE research has noted, young women have been more likely than young men to engage in activism, and this pattern holds when it comes to assisting in response to COVID-19. Of the eight pandemic-related civic actions, 43% of young women said they had taken five or more. By contrast, just one-third of men had done at least that many, and young women were more likely to have taken all but one of the actions (volunteering as a poll worker).

Black Youth Hit Hardest by the Pandemic

The pandemic has already changed the ways Americans participate in elections and in democracy more broadly, and the barriers hindering young people from participating in civic life could be magnified further unless youth are supported in an equitable manner. Research has shown that the virus is disproportionately affecting people of color nationwide; Black and Latino residents have been up to five times as likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as White people. Furthermore, according to the Economic Policy Institute, Black youth face the double disadvantage of higher unemployment rates due to the pandemic and a higher likelihood of working in “essential” frontline jobs.

Our polling data depict drastic disparities between Black youth and their peers. Nearly half (46%) of Black youth who are not currently in school are also not employed—almost double the unemployment rate of White youth (25%), Asian youth (24%) and Latino youth (26%). Accordingly, though majorities of each racial group reported feeling affected financially by COVID-19, Black youth were at least 7 percentage points more likely than other young people to say that the pandemic was causing a “moderate” or “very significant” economic impact. Yet while most youth whose finances were significantly affected by COVID-19 reported having more free time, Black youth were 10 percentage points more likely than White youth to say that it actually increased their daily responsibilities. Being overburdened and underemployed can engender distrust with the systems designed to help young people survive this series of crises. Given the rate at which they are more likely to be affected, Black youth report feeling more negatively than White youth about both state and federal governments’ attempts to address the impacts of COVID-19.

Another warning sign pointing to potential inequities lies in who is able to transition their lives to new virtual paradigms. Seven and a half percent of young people say that, during COVID-19, they don’t have sufficient access to the Internet—which corresponds to roughly 3.5 million youth who lack adequate connectivity. However, for Black youth, that rate rises to 12%. As schools switch to online curricula, social gatherings move to video conversations, and workplaces transition into remote settings, Internet connectivity is a necessary resource. That many youth—and disproportionately Black youth—lack Internet access is a serious inequity in their educational, economic, and civic lives.

The Pandemic Is Shaping How Young People View Politics

In light of the pandemic, young people have an increased awareness of the ways in which the ecosystem of electoral engagement can affect people’s daily lives—and they have changed their behaviors and attitudes accordingly.

Two out of five young people (40%) have reported paying more attention to news during the COVID-19 crisis, compared to a quarter of youth (26%) who say that they have been paying less attention. The youth who are paying the most attention to news, perhaps unsurprisingly, are those who have been the most economically affected and those who have found their responsibilities increase the most due to COVID. This relationship is notable because both paying more attention to news during the pandemic and suffering economic hardship because of COVID-19 are associated with interest in engaging with electoral politics.

Compared to youth who have paid less or the same attention to news during COVID-19, young people who have paid more attention to the news were 14 percentage points more likely to say the pandemic has helped them realize how much political leaders’ decisions impact their lives,  and 10 points more likely to say the election’s outcomes would matter to their communities. These young people were also more likely to underpin that belief with action. Forty-six percent of youth who were paying more attention to news took 5 or more actions to help respond to the pandemic, whereas just one-third of youth who were paying the same or less attention to news had taken that many. Similarly, youth who were significantly economically affected by the pandemic were more likely to believe that this election was important and more likely to take five or more COVID-related civic actions, suggesting that young people who are following COVID-19 closely are motivated to make their voices heard at the ballot box.

The pandemic has also caused many young people to reevaluate their faith in government and institutions. Young people are distrustful of the President and of the federal government’s ability to deal with COVID-19—reinforcing their overwhelming disapproval of the Trump administration—but they are more optimistic about responses at a local level. Just one in five youth (19%) say they view the federal government more positively as a result of its response to COVID-19, well short of the 49% say that they view the federal government more negatively, and only 17% of youth approve of President Trump’s response to the pandemic.

However, young people’s opinion of state responses to COVID-19 is more mixed: 35 percent of young people each said that they now viewed their state government more favorably, and the same percentage said they view it more negatively. Given the wide range in each state’s responses to COVID-19 and their varied success or lack thereof in slowing the pandemic, more differences emerge when we examine the data by region. Young people living in Southern states and Midwestern states—regions which have seen quicker reopenings of public places and ensuing resurgences in COVID infections—viewed their state governments’ responses more negatively on balance. For youth living on the coasts, the opposite was true: they viewed their state governments more positively. This relationship held even when considering partisanship, as youth living in each region supported Biden over Trump by similar margins.

Conclusions

Young people have stepped up to help their family, friends, and communities during a period of national and global crisis. Our polling data illustrates that not only have young people largely been adhering to public health guidelines, but they’ve also been investing their energies in a variety of ways to help their neighbors and communities. In many ways, our data contradicts common stereotypes of young people as self-absorbed and paralyzed by anxiety. Even in this moment of profound crisis when anxiety is justified and when youth could be forgiven for focusing on how the pandemic is affecting them, they are showing a remarkable desire and ability to think in terms of helping their communities and strengthening democracy.

That said, our data highlights how COVID-19 has negatively impacted young people in various ways, and Black youth have borne the brunt of its impact in terms of employment and responsibilities. As the nation adjusts to civic life under the penumbra of COVID, stakeholders should recognize that shifts in electoral, educational, and civic systems should be designed for equity.

Authors: Kristian Lundberg, Rey Junco. Poll Analysis #1: Youth and the 2020 ElectionPoll Analysis #2: Growing Voters Ages 18-21

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/deeply-affected-pandemic-youth-are-committed-helping-others

Youth Are Interested in Political Action, but Lack Support and Opportunities

March 16, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Why Demonstrating Is Good for Kids - The New York Times

January 30, 2023 Young people continue to believe in their—and their generation’s—political power, but some don’t feel qualified to participate.

Lead author: Ruby Belle Booth
Contributors: Alberto Medina, Kelly Siegel-Stechler, Abby Kiesa

Following a 2022 election cycle in which youth (ages 18-29) played a critical role, our exclusive survey reveals that more than half of young people still believe the country is on the wrong track, and many express major concerns about American values and institutions. At the same time, a majority of young people see politics as important to their personal identity, and more than three in four youth say they believe they can get involved and improve things in their communities. 

Some youth are putting that belief into action through various forms of civic and political engagement, and many more say they might do so if given the opportunity. But too many young people—often those from historically marginalized groups—continue to say they don’t feel well-informed or qualified enough to participate in political life. That points to ongoing challenges in ensuring the equitable civic preparation and participation of all young people.

Major findings from our youth survey include:

  • 55% of young people (ages 18-29) say the country is going in the wrong direction and only 16% believe it’s on the right track.
  • 76% of respondents believe young people have the power to change the country, and 77% believe there are ways for them to get involved.
  • A third of youth (32%) have signed a petition or joined a boycott, and 1 in 7 youth have participated in a march or demonstration, with even more youth (28%) saying they plan to protest or would do so or would if presented with the opportunity.
  • Half of youth say they’re “as well-informed as most people” and only 40% say they feel well-qualified to participate in politics.

Concerned and Distrustful—but Hopeful

The majority of young people (55%) believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, with 16% saying it’s on the right track and the rest (28%) saying they’re not sure. There are some differences among groups of youth: for example, youth of color are more likely than white youth to say the country is on the right track or that they are unsure. Some of that may be partially explained by young people’s partisan preferences, since youth of color are more likely to support Democrats and their view of the current presidential administration may shape their view of the country’s direction.  Young people who reported that they didn’t vote in 2022 were more likely to say they weren’t sure how they felt about the way things are going in the United States.

When asked why they feel the way they do about the direction of the country, many young people who say the country is on the wrong track cite inadequate action on issues they care about like inflation and cost of living, crime, and inequality. Some youth who are pleased with the country’s direction cited progress on some of those issues or the results of the 2022 election as reasons for their optimism. Crucially, while some young people who stated they weren’t sure how they would characterize the direction of the country said they weren’t following politics, others said they had mixed feelings because they saw both good and bad things happening in the country.

Many youth are also concerned about the country’s values and distrustful of major institutions. Nearly two-thirds of young people (62%) expressed concern about the values of the American people, and 45% said they believe that the country is failing to live up to its promises of freedom and fairness, compared to just 18% who believe the country has lived up to these promises.

Less than a third of young people said they trust either of the two major political parties, their state government, Congress, or the President. Among political institutions, the GOP and Congress garnered the highest levels of distrust from youth: 49% and 41%, respectively.

Youth also expressed distrust in large corporations (53%) and major news media (46%); the latter is especially concerning given the important role of news organizations in young people’s electoral learning and engagement. As with the direction of the country, there are important differences by race/ethnicity (51% of white youth distrust major news media, compared to 43% of young Latinos and 35% of Asian and Black youth) that may also correlate with differences in partisan leaning.

With regard to many institutions in American life, about a third of youth said that they neither trust nor distrust the institutions. As with young people who said they’re not sure how they feel about the direction of the country, their ambivalence may reflect a lack of access to/information about a particular institution, or complicated feelings about institutions in which youth see both negative and positive elements.

Young people also have mixed feelings about democracy itself. Only a quarter of young people said they feel confident about democracy in the United States, compared to 31% who are not confident and 43% who said neither. But even as they have major doubts about the democracy they see around them, youth are more optimistic about the potential of democracy: 50% agree (and only 13% disagree) that the democratic system “is capable of creating change” in the country. Similarly, 75% agree that voting is an important way to have a say in the future of the country.

That may be one reason why, despite the tensions between young people’s ideals and the realities of American democracy, more than half of youth (53%) said they are hopeful things will get better in the country.

Youth Know they Have Power, but Need Information and Support

Young people’s hope for the future may also be a reflection of their belief that their generation can and should engage in civic life and effect change. At the same time, there appears to be a gap between young people’s interest in political participation and whether they feel prepared and qualified to do so.

Young people have a strong sense of both individual and collective efficacy: 74% said that there are things they can do to make the world a better place, and 76% believe that their age group has the power to change things. Even more (83%) recognize the potential of young people working with other generations to create change. 

In addition, almost two-thirds of young people (62%) say that their political views are a somewhat or very important part of their personal identity. Young women of color, LGBTQ youth, youth with college experience, and the older segment of the cohort (ages 25-29) are all more likely to say that politics are an important part of their identity, indicating both how marginalized identities and educational and lived experience can contribute to the formation of such political identities. 

However, while a majority of youth have a strong sense that they could achieve change and a strong personal political identity, many don’t feel informed or qualified enough to participate in politics. Only half of youth say they feel they’re “as well-informed as most people,” which underscores our previous finding that 1 in 5 youth who did not vote in 2022 said they did not have enough information about the candidates or the voting process.

Even fewer youth in our survey (40%) say that they feel well-qualified to participate in politics, and youth from groups that have historically held less political power were even less likely to feel qualified. For example, 34% of youth of color say they feel qualified to participate in politics, compared to 44% of white youth. Young people ages 22-29 were also more likely to feel qualified than youth ages 18-21, who are often neglected by parties, campaigns, and organizations.

Whether a young person feels qualified can have a strong impact on participation at the ballot box and beyond, as evidenced by the fact that 53% of youth who voted in 2022 said that they felt well-qualified, compared to just 22% of those who didn’t vote in the midterms.

Some Youth Are Taking Action, Others Want More Opportunity

Young people’s sense of whether they’re well-qualified to participate in politics may be shaping, not just their voter turnout, but their willingness and ability to engage in other forms of political action. Young people’s participation in activities like volunteering for political campaigns, donating money, attending protests, or joining boycotts has risen in recent years, and our 2022 survey finds that youth are engaging in these efforts at rates similar to 2018—a year that was marked, in part, by youth-led gun violence protests after the Parkland school shooting.

That said, relatively few young people are participating in some of these political activities, perhaps owing to a majority of youth feeling they’re not qualified to do so. However, with regard to nearly every type of political engagement we asked about in our survey, far more young people said they plan to do it in the future or would be interested in doing it if they were presented with the opportunity. That suggests it may not be a lack of interest, but a lack of access, that is preventing a significant number of youth from engaging in political life.

Among the types of political engagement we asked about in the survey, signing a petition/joining a boycott, following candidates on social media, and attending demonstrations were the actions most frequently taken by youth. More than 1 in 7 young people said they’ve been to a protest or demonstration, and an additional 28% who haven’t yet done so said they plan to do it, or would do so given the opportunity. That means more than 40% of youth are interested in this type of political engagement.

Notably, while just 7% of youth said they have volunteered for a campaign, three times as many (21%) expressed interest in doing so, which suggests there is strong untapped potential for campaigns and candidates to recruit young people. Similarly, while only 2% of young people say they’ve run for office, more than 1 in 10 said they might do so. Our research has recently explored how young people are increasingly interested in running for office but face various barriers that must be addressed through explicit encouragement and support.

This new survey data underscores ongoing trends in young people’s civic engagement: youth are interested in getting involved and understand they have the power to effect change, but they sometimes lack the information, support, and explicit opportunities to do so. The fact that less than half of youth feel well-qualified to participate in political life also speaks to a lack of systemic, developmental support for young people to develop as voters and civic actors and find their voice within democracy.

Addressing these issues will require a commitment to the work we describe in our CIRCLE Growing Voters framework: multiple institutions working together to create diverse pathways for all youth to enjoy electoral learning and engagement opportunities.

CIRCLE Growing Voters

Released in 2022, the CIRCLE Growing Voters report introduces a new framework to transform how communities and institutions prepare youth for democracy. It includes major recommendations for organizations across sectors to do this work more equitably and effectively. Read the Report and Learn More

About the Survey: The survey was developed by CIRCLE at Tufts University, and the polling firm Ipsos collected the data from their nationally representative panel of respondents and a sample of people recruited for this survey between November 9 and November 30, 2022. The study involved an online survey of a total of 2,018 self-reported U.S. citizens ages 18 to 29 in the United States. The margin of error is +/- 2.2 percentage points. Unless mentioned otherwise, data are for all 18- to 29-year-olds in our sample.

https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/youth-are-interested-political-action-lack-support-and-opportunities

Youth Right Now: The State of Kids in America

March 14, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Youth Right Now Club kid looking at camera

Posted 08/19/2022 by Jim Clark, President & CEO, Boys & Girls Clubs of America in Our Experts

It is an interesting time to gauge how kids are doing, as millions of students head back to school just over two years into a global pandemic. Usually, a new school year brings excitement for new beginnings, if not some sore shoulders from overstuffed backpacks.

But in 2022, parents, caregivers, educators and youth development professionals have worries they didn’t have just a few years ago:

How will the ongoing COVID pandemic affect the year ahead? Will students be able to catch up on what they’ve missed? How are kids feeling about their safety? Mental health needs are growing like never before – what do young people need right now? And in a rapidly shifting workforce, how can we equip teens with skills and experiences to be successful?

As the leader of Boys & Girls Clubs of America and as a father, it’s been one of the most challenging times in my career to comprehend what today’s kids are going through and the ramifications yet to come. While the past few years have been hard on all of us, I think it’s a uniquely challenging time to grow up.

Yes, it’s been astounding to see how resilient kids and teens have been and continue to be – navigating virtual learning and school closures, masks and safety policies, social unrest and increased violence in communities. I’m moved by the stories of Boys & Girls Club kids and teens who have pitched in to help their communities, spoken up for causes they’ve cared about, and found consistency at their Club when the only constant was change. But we cannot overestimate the impact the last few years have had on kids, from trauma to disrupted learning.

While it may be some time until our nation can measure the effects of the past few years, today Boys & Girls Clubs of America is proud to share Youth Right Now – our pulse on America’s kids and teens. 

YOUTH RIGHT NOW EXPLORE DATA & INSIGHTS FROM AMERICA’S KIDS & TEENS

Youth Right Now provides insights from more than 100,000 kids and teens on pressing matters like mental health, their readiness for life after high school, and their safety and success.* This data set, owned and managed by Boys & Girls Clubs of America since its origins in 2011 is, to our knowledge, the world’s largest private data set on kids and teens.

While I encourage you to dig into the insights, here are the takeaways I find most valuable:

  • It’s more important than ever that young people have safe, nonjudgmental adults they feel comfortable approaching about tough topics. 
Ability to cope with challenges infographic

  • Data shows that kids are struggling with their abilities in coping with challenges, which we know they’ve seen plenty of in the past years. And when they’re stressed about something, they often try to keep it secret. Having a caring adult in their lives who they trust and can go to when times get tough is more critical than ever.

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  • After years of social disruption and as youth grow up in a 24/7 online world, kids and teens need to build essential soft skills. 
    It’s heartening to see a generation confident in much-needed abilities such as leadership and setting goals, but data shows roughly half of
Workforce Readiness infographic
  • kids and teens’ conflict resolution skills needs improvement, and about a third could improve their teamwork. 

    Soft skills are in steep demand from employers; to meet this need, Boys & Girls Clubs embed essential skill-building from ages 6 to 18 through programming and career exploration, as well as job readiness training for older youth.

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  • Just as social skills have been impacted by an increasingly digital world, so has youth safety as kids spend more and more time online. 
    While online platforms offer exciting ways for youth to interact, learn, and express their interests, they also bring risks to child safety – including cyberbullying, lowered self-esteem and exposure to inappropriate or harmful content and people. 
Cyberbullying infographic


  • With kids spending so much time online, it reaffirms the need for consistent, trusting relationships with a caring adult and the development of online safety skills from an early age – especially as our data shows that kids and teens are 16% less likely to report cyberbullying than in-person bullying, preferring to keep their online interactions private from the adults in their life.

You can read more about these insights and access resources for parents and caregivers here:

_________________________________________________________________________________________

YOUTH RIGHT NOW
EXPLORE DATA & INSIGHTS FROM AMERICA’S KIDS & TEENS

The past few years have taken a steep toll on today’s kids and teens – but the data also depicts a resilient and empathetic generation. In fact, when making a decision, 86% of youth say they try to think about how other people will be affected. And 92% want to help when they see someone having a problem.

As the nation’s largest youth-serving organization, Boys & Girls Clubs of America is working alongside Clubs and communities nationwide to ensure what is top of mind for today’s youth is top of mind for all. 

After all, great futures for America’s kids depend on all of us today. 

Jim Clark signature

Jim Clark
President and CEO
Boys & Girls Clubs of America

https://www.bgca.org/news-stories/2022/August/youth-right-now-the-state-of-kids-in-america

The Student Knows- MyScore

March 8, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Student Knows Answer Stock Illustrations – 11 Student Knows Answer Stock Illustrations, Vectors & Clipart - Dreamstime

MyScore privileges  a different site and source of knowledge.
It makes the student the expert, not the teacher. Not the parent. Not the researcher. What does that mean?__________________________________________________________

A DIFFERENT KIND OF RESEARCH
The researcher wants to know specifics. She wants to know if a child is fearful, what is the source or sources of that fear? If the child is scared of failing a math exam more than failing a history exam, that is significant, and especially so if that speaks for 60% of the class. Then a teacher can do something to demystify and de-terrorize the whole math exam experience.

If I learn that the children are not hopeful about the future, and I narrow it down to specifics. I discover they have less hope about being successful at school, but more hope about making friends.  That too is useful knowledge. I can shape a more hope-inducing curriculum.  The approach clearly makes the researcher the expert of the knowing. He has the interpretive tools to know what to look for and how to act on what he learns.

I Hate Math Funny Gift Idea Digital Art by Funny Gift Ideas - Pixels

POWER TO KNOW AND ACT
These are all normal examples of knowledge that privileges the researcher to know and act on the findings. But is it as simple as that?
Surely this arrangement is more than just about knowledge. It is about power too. It is about who knows enough to act and who knows enough to interpret.

Two questions go unasked.

1.What is the role of the student who is surveyed here?

2. What is that role compared to the role of the researcher?

One is only exercising the power to be known, to be the teller. How they come to know what they know is not of interest.

The other is exercising the power to know, and to tell what they are told in an authoritative context. All power resides on that side of the equation.

Read more here

Four myths about peer pressure

March 8, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Washington Post Phyllis Fagell

In seventh grade, Nathan Maynard joined a gang, hoping it would give him the sense of belonging he lacked at home. But his new friends only led him to make poor decisions, and he was sent to the office for acting out 73 times, a number he recalls because the principal would track his visits on a Post-it note stuck to his desk.

Maynard, co-author of “Hacking School Discipline,” wasn’t motivated to turn his life around until a teacher told him that if he got good grades, he could get a scholarship to college and get out of Indiana. He decided to distance himself from the gang and make new friends “who wanted to do fun things that wouldn’t get me in trouble.”

As a school counselor, I often remind children that “you are who you’re with,” but that oversimplifies a complex dynamic. Here are four common misconceptions about peer pressure and ways that caregivers can raise children to resist negative influences and make smart, healthy choices.

Myth No. 1: Peer pressure is coercive

The “Just Say No” campaign that launched in the 1980s urged kids to simply say no to drugs. The approach didn’t work, perhaps because it related more to coercive pressure than kids’ developmental needs.

Risk-taking increases between childhood and adolescence, particularly whenchildren are with peers. This can have long-term negative effects. Research shows, for instance, that when seventh- and eighth-graders associate over the course of adolescence with friends who engage in deviant behavior, they’re less likely to develop the interpersonal skills required to have high-quality romantic, professional and social relationships in adulthood.

“The environment shapes behavior, but [people tend to] overlook the social contagion,” said economist Robert Frank, author of “Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work.” For example, he says, when the government began taxing cigarettes, it was for revenue, but it was also on the grounds that smoking harms others through secondhand smoke. “The more plausible rationale is that you harm others by the contagion effects and making others more likely to smoke,” he said.

What should parents do? Share data with your child to help them recognize when they might be more vulnerable to making poor choices, and prompt them to think about times they acted uncharacteristically around friends. If they can identify the conditions that worked against them, they’ll be less likely to put themselves in the same situation again.

There are times when peer pressure does involve coercion and when kids will need refusal skills. For instance, about 5 percent of middle and high school students across the country have experienced sextortion, which Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center and a professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University, defines as “the threatened dissemination of explicit, intimate or embarrassing images of a sexual nature without consent.” Hinduja added: “When you extrapolate it out to the millions of kids in the U.S., it’s a meaningful number.”

What parents are getting wrong about teens and sexting

No simple catchphrase can guard against making poor choices, but Hinduja recommends asking questions such as, “How will you determine what’s wrong and right?” or “What will you allow to influence your mind-set and choices?”

Walk your child through hypothetical scenarios, such as feeling pressure to send a nude selfie or letting someone copy homework. If my friend’s daughter texts her parents, “I forgot to walk the dog,” for example, that’s code for, “I want you to pick me up right now.”

Explain to your child that if they don’t know what to do, they can ask themselves: “How would I advise a friend in the same situation?” “How do I think I’ll feel about this choice in a few weeks?” or “How would I feel if I had to explain this choice to my parents or a school administrator?” To avoid overestimating the social risk, they can ask, “How would I feel about someone else who chose to opt out of this?”

Myth No. 2: If they pick the right friends, they’ll do the right thing

“The traditional idea is that you want your kids to pick their peers carefully, because if your kids are friends with the ‘good kids,’ they’ll be more likely to walk the straight and narrow,” said Michael Macy, a professor of information science and sociology at Cornell University. But when Macy analyzed adolescent peer effects on cigarette consumption, he found that it’s not only whether a child’s friends smoke; it’s also whether the kids who have social status in their network smoke.

“Kids see what gets you friends based on the attributes of popular kids, and then they adopt those behaviors thinking this will help them gain social approval and avoid isolation,” Macy said. Schools have different cliques, and you can steer your child “toward a subculture in which the popular kids have those attributes and toward friends with those attributes who are doing constructive things,” Macy added. That might mean joining the school orchestra or a sports team or doing volunteer work.

It’s also important for parents to be mindful of which celebrities they highlight. For example, after a shooting outside a recreation center where the West Philly Panthers youth football team plays, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown and running back Miles Sanders came to the site and led a workshop for 350 kids, said Daniel Levy, the manager of youth football and community relations for the Philadelphia Eagles. “They shared their experiences with gun violence and told them that if they listened to mentors they trust and focused on football and school, they would stay on the right path,” Levy said.

The good news is that parents also have tremendous power to influence kids’ choices, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and others. “If you consistently say, ‘No, not until it’s legal,’ legal being a proxy for when their brains are almost done developing, kids have much lower levels of developing substance use disorder,” said Jessica Lahey, author of “The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence.”

Myth No. 3: ‘Everyone’ is engaging in risky behaviors

The pressure to conform is powerful, so share data to dispel the myth that “everyone” is engaging in risky behaviors such as underage drinking, vaping or having sex. In 2019, the NIAAA said that 24.6 percent of 14-to-15-year-olds reported having at least one drink, which means roughly three-quarters said they hadn’t drank at all in their lifetimes. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that less than 5 percent of middle-schoolers reported using e-cigs in 2020 and that the majority of young adolescents are not having sex.

And yet everyone is susceptible to the “spotlight effect,” a phenomenon where people overestimate the extent to which their actions are noticed by others. If your child is worried they’ll be judged if they behave differently than their peers, underscore that their friends are worrying about how others perceive them. They also can ask themselves, “What would I do if I were alone?” Research shows that self-affirmations can help children respond to challenges in healthier, more productive ways.

If your child still struggles to resist negative influences, you may need to affirm their identity. “Often with adolescents, they cope with disconnection by leaning on technology, substances or food,” said Justine Ang Fonte, a health educator in New York City. “School and public health efforts tend to focus on treating these risky behavior symptoms instead of addressing the root cause, the actual disconnection,” which can stem from “a lack of affirmation in their natural identities, [such as] being queer, or not engaging in a behavior that is socially constructed to define a valued identity, such as [acting] hypermasculine to prove boyhood.”

Kids might benefit from joining an affinity group or club geared toward their identities and interests, Ang Fonte added. “For children of color, this may be a racial affinity group; for queer children, a Spectrum club or GSA; and for children with disabilities, a disability visibility group.”

Myth No. 4: Peer pressure is ‘bad’

You can leverage behavior contagion for good, too. “The nicest example is solar panels,” Frank said. “The pure copycat effect is when someone installs a rooftop installation. After four months, you have not one but two, and every four months it doubles, so after two years you’ve got 31 copycats.”

The ripple effect is real. Researchers found that sixth-graders who are friends with peers who behave in prosocial ways tend to adopt similar behaviors by eighth grade. “If there’s something we’d like to see kids do more of because it benefits them, let them see another kid do that thing and be praised for it,” Frank said.

Peer pressure can lead to both good and bad outcomes, but as Frank pointed out, “being receptive and influenceable is … an adaptive trait. We of course caution kids not to do what the jerks do, but the earth we inhabit can be a dangerous place,” he said.“We can learn useful things from what other people do.”

Phyllis L. Fagell is a licensed clinical professional counselor and author of “Middle School Matters” and the upcoming “Middle School Superpowers.” She’s a counselor at the Sheridan School and a therapist at the Chrysalis Group.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2023/02/28/peer-pressure-myths-advice/

High School students at Risk

March 8, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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The Future of Construction Depends on High School Students

The results in the CDC’s recently released Youth Risk Behavior Survey confirm that high school students are experiencing alarming rates of violence, poor mental health, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.  

In 2021:  

  • 42% of high school students felt so sad or hopeless almost every day 
  • 29% of high school students experienced poor mental health  
    22% of high school students seriously considered attempting suicide.  

The results above—and others found in the report—reveal an increasingly urgent mental health crisis for high school students.  

How can schools prevent and intervene to help students NOW?   

Targeted suicide education and support for students and staff is a critical to prevention and intervention. BASE Education, a student mental health solution, was founded to support kids in crisis and prevent suicide.   

  • The Suicide Prevention Module for Studentsnormalizes intense feelings of adolescence and teaches them how to identify feelings, help-seeking behaviors for themselves, copings strategies, and more.  
  • The Suicide Prevention Module for Educators teaches how to identify students, when and how to properly refer students, facts about risk, and how to be a part of prevention, intervention, and postvention.   

Read more about 5 Steps for Developing Protective Factors against Teen Suicide here.  

Lessons for Leading Schools in Challenging Times, With Equity in Mind

March 2, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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School leader walking with teachers

Elizabeth Ann Ross Harvard Graduate School of Education

Public schools have been plagued with staffing challenges at all levels in recent years, including turnover at the top but, while some might view the current times with trepidation, Jennifer Cheatham sees possibilities.

“There’s a window of opportunity that opens up for change during transition,” explains Cheatham, a senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. It is a great “time for a new leader to take advantage of the hope … and dissuade the fear.”

In her new book, Entry Planning for Equity-Focused Leaders: Empowering Schools and Communities, Cheatham and her co-authors tap into their own leadership successes and struggles, and weave in practical lessons and advice from other leaders.

When it comes to leading with equity, especially racial equity, the authors call for a collaborative versus a top-down approach. At the end of the day, they explain, leaders are temporary but the communities they serve will remain.

Cheatham shared six tips for the first make-or-break months on the job for new principals, superintendents, and other education leaders:

1) Avoid harm.

When new leaders show up, community members may worry about the potential damage they can cause. The new arrivals might unintentionally resurface old wounds and organizational trauma. Paying attention to past harm and creating opportunities for healing can be transformative, Cheatham says.

2) Strive to understand current and historical context.

It’s important to understand current day context in order to appreciate the strengths that exist in the new community you are joining — you don’t want to end up “dismantling things that are good” — but understanding historical context is even more crucial, Cheatham argues. She says it is important to grasp “why things are the way they are.” If you don’t understand the history of systemic racism and oppression in your community and the country “it’s hard to build towards a positive future.”

3) Be self-aware.

Leaders need to be intentional about understanding who they are and the potential biases they bring. Take time to think about how you might be perceived by those you are serving.

4) Listen with empathy and develop a shared vision.

Focus less on diagnosing problems — unless the problems stand in the way of your community’s aspirations. Use your energy to make collaborative and sustainable change by working alongside those in your district.

5) Look after yourself.

The early days of leadership can be exhausting because you are doing the work of leading and working through your early plans and ideas at the same time, says Cheatham. Hearing about other people’s problems and pain can be emotionally draining too. “You have to prepare mentally and introduce routines for self-care from the beginning,” says Cheatham, “otherwise you [will] run out of gas before you’ve even gotten going.”

6) Don’t do the work alone.

School leaders, particularly women and leaders of color, are under greater scrutiny than ever, according to Cheatham. It is important to have a group of trusted advisers to bounce off ideas, to support you, and to keep you accountable.

Jennifer Cheatham’s latest book, Entry Planning for Equity-Focused Leaders: Empowering Schools and Communities, is co-authored with Adam Parrott-Sheffer, and Rodney Thomas. Cheatham is the co-chair of the Public Education Leadership Project at Harvard.

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/23/02/lessons-leading-schools-challenging-times-equity-mind

Celebrating Women’s History Month

March 1, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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North Carolina Central University Celebrates Women's History Month | North Carolina Central University

Thank you Lorne Epstein for these resources

Women’s History Month is a time to celebrate the contributions and achievements of women throughout history and in contemporary society, while also raising awareness of the challenges they still face, including discrimination, gender-based violence, and unequal access to opportunities and resources.

I invite you to acknowledge the experiences of women and promote gender equality. Women’s History Month inspires us to take action towards creating a more equitable and just world for all women, where they can reach their full potential and live free from discrimination and oppression.

Here is a collection of videos, books, and articles you can share freely with your teams to support their learning journey. There are an infinite number of resources, and these are ones I curated.

Books

Poster

Women’s History Month Celebrating Women of Character, Courage, and Commitment Poster

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Video’s

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Music

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Articles

https://www.lorneepstein.com/

Bathrooms are now some of the most dangerous places in Montgomery schools

February 28, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Nicole Asberry Washington Post Feb 27th 2023

Since Montgomery County’s school year began, students have found shooting threats written on bathroom walls, Percocet residue beside toilets and swastikas drawn in stalls. Students have been caught vaping, fighting, vandalizing equipment and taking drugs in bathrooms.

The bathroom has become one of the least safe places on campus, students in the county say.Some parents say their children now avoid the bathroom altogether, choosing instead to wait until they’re home.

“The kids have figured out that the bathrooms are kind of a place where they can do things where they otherwise wouldn’t do, because that’s where the least adult supervision is,” said Ricky Ribeiro, whose two children and a nephew under his care are enrolled in the Maryland school district.

In January, two Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School students were found drunkand unconscious in a bathroom during first period, according to the school’s student newspaper, The Tattler. Three Richard Montgomery High School students were charged with robbery in January after they robbed several Gaithersburg High School students in a bathroom. Last school year, a student was shot in a bathroom at Magruder High School in Rockville.

School bathrooms have typically been hot spots for student misbehavior, said Kenneth S. Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services. Students have always used hall passes to stay out of class or smoke in the bathroom. But schools are more worried now as restrooms have become common sites for bullying and violence.

A public school employee sanitizes a sink in a bathroom at a U.S. high school. (Charlie Neibergall/AP)

School districts across the country combating similar problems have started restricting bathroom use. In Virginia, administrators closed some restrooms during the school day at North Stafford High School because of a vaping problem. Texas districts have installed vape sensors to monitor air quality and catch vaping students. Last school year, several schools closed bathrooms because of a TikTok trend that encouraged students to vandalize and steal paper towel dispensers and fire alarms. Last week, a Texas superintendent resigned after a third-grader found his gun in a school bathroom.

Ribeiro said he was displeased last year when his son at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring would frequently tell him that the bathrooms smelled like vape and marijuana. His concern deepened this year after reports of students who overdosed in the school bathrooms. He’s spoken about the problems at a school board meeting, advocating for a systemic approach to the problem similar to the athletic safety plan that was announced after a brawl at a high school football game earlier in the school year.

“I don’t blame them for this happening obviously, because obviously, MCPS is not in control of the individual behavior of students,” Ribeiro, 39, said of the county’s school system. “But I am frustrated that there doesn’t seem to be a systemwide response to the behaviors, particularly as they’ve multiplied in scope and severity.”

The school system — which is Maryland’s largest with roughly 160,600 students — announced a more detailed safety plan Friday, divided into immediate, short-term and long-term actions. In its immediate plans, the system will add more security staff, form a “Safety and Security and Student Well-being Advisory Group,” and host community sessions about ongoing safety issues.

“While this is not the first time there have been concerns around inappropriate behavior, the increase in incidents in our community has escalated the urgency of these issues,” schools spokeswoman Jessica Baxter said ahead of the announcement.

Already, some countyschools now lock certainbathrooms during the day. Aanika Arjumand, a 16-year-old junior at Gaithersburg High School, said she often travels from the first floor of her high school to the third floor to find an unlocked restroom. The girls’ bathrooms that usually are locked, she said, are the ones that have menstrual product dispensers.

“It’s really unfair to a lot of the girls who generally just want to use a space for how it’s intended to be used,” Arjumand said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/26/montgomery-county-schools-bathrooms-dangerous/

Study: 4 Cities in Montgomery County Rank in Top 10 Most Ethnically Diverse in U.S.

February 24, 2023 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized
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Michelle McQueen MyMCM

According to a study by Wallet Hub, four of the top 10 most diverse cities in the country are in Montgomery County.

The finance website placed Germantown, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville in its top ten “2023’s Most Ethnically Diverse Cities in the U.S.” list. Germantown ranks number one in the country.

Wallet Hub compared 501 of the most populated U.S. cities to calculate an ethnic diversity score for each. Three metrics were scored, including diversity in ethnicity, language, and birthplace.

According to the 2023 findings, Germantown is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville followed at number three, four, and eight respectively.

The top 10 most diverse cities in America were in order Germantown, Md.;  Jersey City, N.J.; Gaithersburg, Md.;  Silver Spring, Md.; New York, N.Y.; Kent, Wash.; Spring Valley, Nev.;  Rockville, Md.; San Jose, Calif.; and Oakland, Calif..

Data used to create this ranking was collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The entire report is available, here.

According to a study by Wallet Hub, four of the top 10 most diverse cities in the country are in Montgomery County.

The finance website placed Germantown, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville in its top ten “2023’s Most Ethnically Diverse Cities in the U.S.” list. Germantown ranks number one in the country.

Wallet Hub compared 501 of the most populated U.S. cities to calculate an ethnic diversity score for each. Three metrics were scored, including diversity in ethnicity, language, and birthplace.

According to the 2023 findings, Germantown is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Rockville followed at number three, four, and eight respectively.

The top 10 most diverse cities in America were in order Germantown, Md.;  Jersey City, N.J.; Gaithersburg, Md.;  Silver Spring, Md.; New York, N.Y.; Kent, Wash.; Spring Valley, Nev.;  Rockville, Md.; San Jose, Calif.; and Oakland, Calif..

Data used to create this ranking was collected from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The entire report is available, here.

Study: 4 Cities in Montgomery County Rank in Top 10 Most Ethnically Diverse in U.S.