October 21, 2021

Will the wide receiver go long? Will the running back run it up the middle? What about a quarterback sneak? You’ve always got the Hail Mary in a pinch! Y4Y’s newest course on career pathways emphasizes that students have numerous, equally effective ways to score in the end zone. Six points are six points, however you get there!

Throw a Pass to Trades

Many young people have already discovered that going straight to college may not be the “obvious” choice it was once thought to be. An estimate of spring 2021 U.S. college enrollment revealed that 200,000 fewer women and a dramatic 400,000 fewer men were attending college from just one year earlier. The National Association of Workforce Boards notes:

“The nation’s home builders face a severe skilled labor shortage. Some of the jobs that are in highest demand are carpenters, electricians, HVAC and solar installers, plumbers, painters, and masonry workers. In the previous two quarters, unfilled positions in construction have averaged 275,000,” according to Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders.

The National Association of Workforce Boards says “it’s time for a major national focus on training new workers in the skilled building trades. First on the agenda must be a change in the perception of trade jobs. Too many high school students, and those who influence their decisions, never consider the opportunities available for well-paying jobs and promising careers in construction after graduation.”

Your 21^st CCLC Goes Long

Does your program “influence the decisions” of your high school students while helping them make their own choices? You are if you’re meeting your goals! Y4Y’s new course walks you through a comprehensive and individualized approach to guiding students to the end zone. With pathways that wind through the trades, military, workforce and college, students can gain a broader-than-ever view of their options for the future. You’ll be setting up the play for both personal reflection and career exploration.

Cover the Player

Here are just a few tools you can use in your program to help students gain important insights about themselves through the first half.

• It’s never too soon to get students reflecting on what makes them tick. Elementary programs can download the Elementary Student Interest Inventory to get the ball in play.
• Hand off to families with the College and Career Pathways Questionnaire for Students and Families to help you capture data on student interest and family needs related to the students’ future.
• Check out the quick-and-easy online Work Personality Evaluation for students to learn more about their fundamental traits and how they could be applied to different professions. (You might want to try this one yourself, too!)

After halftime, run the whole field by exploring careers and the right paths to get there with more course tools.

• It starts at home. Offer Tips for Families: Preparing Children and Youth for Success for ideas on exposing students early to a variety of life experiences.
• Be sure staff can access Guiding K-12 Students to Plan for Future Careers so that each adult in your program is playing an active role in career preparation.
• Bring your community along! Y4Y's Guiding Questions for Partnerships in College and Career Awareness, Exploration and Preparation will start the team huddle.

Texas coach Darrell Royal famously said, “There are three things that can happen on a forward pass — and two of them are bad.” Help your student complete that pass, wherever they are on the field, and keep their eye on the endzone. Your 21^st CCLC program is the perfect place to help students understand that college is just one of many plays that can deliver them to a winning career and future.

October 21, 2021

Charming football stories, like that of real-life Michael Oher (featured in the beloved book and film The Blind Side), remind us that each teammate has a role of equal importance to play. So why should all the glory go to one? Y4Y offers numerous tools within several courses — from Including Students With Disabilities to Student Voice and Choice and beyond — that will help to ensure equity in your program and that nobody’s hogging the ball.

The quarterback leads the team, calls the huddle and ultimately decides who has the ball. This is your 21^st CCLC program director (PD). To work toward greater equity, a PD should

• Gather stakeholders to be sure the program mission reflects your team’s dedication to equity. Consult tools like the Positive Learning Environment Implementation Checklist for guidance. Knowing families and cultures is another great place to start.
• Train staff on creating an environment that amplifies student voice with the goals of explaining how group norms can support a program culture that values student voice, and defining and developing those group norms with students. Place emphasis on equal opportunities for all voices in that training.
• Be sure to consult your state and local education agencies for standard resources around language and initiatives relevant to you, like Minnesota’s LeadMN.

The tight ends and fullbacks might do a little catching or running, but a lot of blocking. These are your site coordinators. Their role in supporting equity in your program is to make sure that a play that was called with the best of intentions can be translated into real yardage. Your site coordinators should

• Begin by ensuring equitable student voice and choice in practice. Check out the Y4Y Student Voice and Choice Implementation Checklist.
• Be sensitive about all program communications, like your program’s Family Handbook (you can download and adapt a Y4Y sample), and all program forms (see Y4Y’s Process for Developing Inclusive Forms tool).
• Advance the work around positive group norms by using Y4Y’s Group Norms Agreement. This is the student-driven aspect of your program culture, so getting student buy-in on equity is key. You’ll probably be pleasantly surprised on that score. And on that note…

The wide receivers and running backs are the little guys that really get you down the field. These are your students. Not only do they need your protection at the snap; you want to be sure that each one has a turn at possession. This makes for a much livelier game and offers your best chance for a win. Really demonstrate that your 21^st CCLC program is the place for students from historically disenfranchised groups to get a leg up:

• Build relationships. Your students will know you’re serious about equity when you demonstrate authentic investment in their success. Y4Y’s Real Talk is a great tool in this effort.
• Empower students by teaching them how to set their own goals with goal setting activities, games and templates. Encourage them to be ambitious!

Finally, your safeties, or frontline staff, are your last line of defense. Legislation around 21^st CCLC programs is specific about who your program serves. You can be sure you’re within the letter and the spirit of the law when staff members ensure opportunity for enrichment and advancement to the students who need it the most. Staff should

• Be trained in assessing assumptions about students, with the goals of reflecting on how learning should take place, who students are, what they’re capable of learning and doing, and the role of the teacher versus the student in the learning process.
• Always use socially responsible language with respect to all students, but especially those with disabilities or different ethnic or religious backgrounds than their peers.
• Consult Y4Y’s group discussion guidelines to bring students back to practicing mutual respect as needed.
• Regularly review strategies for creating a positive learning environment to be sure the thoughts, feelings and opportunities of all students are considered in all that your program does.

Back to Michael Oher and the critical role of the left tackle: When a team has a right-handed quarterback, which is most common, the left tackle makes sure that when the quarterback turns for a throw, his “blind side” is protected. When it comes to ensuring equity in your program, do your best not to have a blind side. But just in case, you might have an equity warrior in mind within your organization who can serve as your left tackle. Be sure that position carries with it all the weight and power it deserves.

October 21, 2021

Did you know that recent research suggests the best teams are made up of both optimists and pessimists? Are you strategic in placing students together for team projects? Using tools in Y4Y’s STEAM and Project-Based Learning courses, and a strengths-based approach, consider how you can be intentional in your team building for the best creative outcomes, and how these lessons can also inform staffing.

Let’s start by identifying the strengths of both optimists and pessimists.

What can “optimists” bring to the table?

• Broader acceptance of information
• Flexible thinking
• Enthusiasm
• Relationship building
• Strategies for dealing with unnecessary negativity
• Energy
• A strength-based lens

What can “pessimists” bring to the table?

• Persistent pursuit of details
• Critical thinking
• Caution and planning
• Realism
• Strategies for dealing with disappointment
• Delight over small victories (even if it’s because they’re unexpected)
• Stress management

If you’re a frontline worker or site coordinator, you might be thinking about students in each of these categories. If you’re a program director (and again, site coordinator), you might be thinking about staff. To begin with, don’t worry that you might have labeled someone in your head as a pessimist. Instead, celebrate the strengths of that person, like the ones listed above, and keep those strengths in mind as you’re team building.

Building Those Teams

The research cited above says that when you group only optimists together, you might get amazing, big ideas, with very little thought as to how those ideas might carry challenges. Even if some of your optimists envision challenges, they may not voice them in an effort to always be positive and supportive of their team. By the same token, a team made of up of only pessimists can stifle each other. They may be less likely to have big, imaginative ideas to begin with, but even when or if they have them, they’ll be less confident about voicing them, for fear that their fellow pessimists will only poke holes in them. This is the basis for the theory that with some big-thinking optimists, balanced with some challenge-minded pessimists, the best outcomes can result.

Depending on how deep you are in recovery mode, ambitious design thinking STEAM projects or months-long civic problem-based undertakings might not be on your radar. But that doesn’t mean you’re not finding ways to group students for cooperative activities in your catch-up efforts. Today and going forward, you can think about how to group students (and staff) to allow for the most balanced groups (or teams) and the best outcomes. Grab tips from Y4Y’s

• Ice Breaker Activities list to better understand each student or staff member’s perspective on the world. A rousing game of “this or that” could do it!
• Selecting Student Roles for Group Work tool to reflect on how different personalities work best in different roles that need fulfilling. Brainstorm about what those roles might be for any given project or activity, and adapt this tool accordingly.
• Team-Building Activities list for ideas on how you can use a low-stakes environment to help a new grouping of students or staff find their collective rhythm.
• Group Discussion Guidelines to ensure that these conflicting approaches keep conversations respectful.
• Working With Groups Training Starter to train staff on navigating group dynamics.

Opposites attract. Yin and Yang. The good with the bad. Offense and defense. Language is rich with expressions that illustrate exactly what these researchers have discovered: We shouldn’t isolate ourselves from people who think differently from us if we’re to ensure balance and best outcomes. What a great message to send young people during an era of great division. After all, there is no “I” in TEAM.

October 5, 2021

Out-of-school time programs like yours are widely viewed as a key to post-pandemic learning recovery. Just like the players on a football team, each student needs slightly different equipment to get through some tough plays. By using the new Y4Y Structuring Successful Homework Help and Tutoring Sessions Click & Go, your program can avoid unnecessary roughness as you coach your students to the end zone!

Below are just some of the tools you’ll discover when you check out the new Click & Go on academic supports.  

Down…

• Be sure to huddle around the mini-lesson, which provides an overview of the important distinctions between successful homework and tutoring sessions with respect to their structures and functions. To start thinking about how these apply to your program, download the Homework Help Versus Tutoring Sessions tool.
• Podcast #1, Structuring Successful Homework Help and Tutoring Sessions From Beginning to End (full transcript), coaches listeners through one site’s own set of hard-learned do’s and don’ts around implementing their academic supports.

Set…

• What is academic support going to look like on the home field? Download Five Key Strategies for Establishing Effective Learning Environments for Homework and Tutoring and Homework and Tutoring Session Routines to guide you.
• To guarantee yardage, your playbook should include Resource-Based Techniques and Practices.
• Listen to podcast #2, Increasing Student Self-Regulation and Self-Monitoring Skills (full transcript), and download Goal Setting Activities, Games and Templates so students can pull a quarterback sneak, playing an active role in their own academic recovery.

HIKE!

• The right team and materials will get you to the goal post. At kickoff, check out podcast #3, Vetting and Selecting High-Quality Supplementary Homework Help and Tutoring Materials (full transcript). Then make a pass over to the Quality Online Education Resources tool.
• Your scrimmage partners may have a lot to offer to strengthen your game. Download the Accessing School-Day Staff and Resources tool for their play-by-play.

Now, more than ever, the role your 21^st CCLC program plays in the academic growth of your students is critical. Y4Y is here to respond to your greatest needs. The new Click & Go on structuring successful homework help and tutoring sessions was developed to help guide you to MVP status in the academic recovery of our nation. Looking for more? Let us know through the Y4Y Suggestion Box. Y4Y is committed to the team!