School board to hire Arabic-speaking ‘school-community ambassador’ to reach out to refugees

The Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board in Windsor, Ontario, Canada wants new students to feel welcome in school, especially those who come to Canada as refugees.

So when Catholic Central High School Principal Danielle Disjardins-Koloff proposed the idea of creating an Arabic-speaking “school-community ambassador” position to help connect families with schools and services, district officials were quickly on board, CBC reports.

“What we’ve found is that a number of families are not really aware about the school in the school system and how it operates in the province of Ontario, so in creating this position, we are trying to really enlighten families about all of the opportunities in the educational system here in the province,” superintendent John Ulicny said.

Desjardins-Koloff said she’s identified language, transportation, and the lack of knowledge and comfort among caregivers as reasons many new students aren’t as engaged in school activities as their classmates.

“I’m hoping to build community,” she said. “I’m hoping to remove barriers …. So that parents can become more involved in their children’s educational careers and be more knowledgeable about decision they are making for their child’s futures and lives.”

Officials said the new ambassador will be required to speak Arabic, and will be responsible for communicating with parents of refugee students, hosting information nights and other community outreach.

Arabic is the most common language in Windsor behind English and French, according to the news site.

“We know that if the community is actively engaged, the parents are actively engaged, then student achievement results go up enormously,” Ulicny said.

Recent Catholic Central graduate Karla Alnajm told CBC she thinks the ambassador idea is a good one.

“Transitioning schools is hard for any kid, but speaking a whole different language was like – I was freaking out on the first day,” Alnajm said.

“I think that would be so helpful, especially that when I was here, I didn’t have that kind of help,” she said. “My parents had no clue what was going on in school the first two years. They’d ask me about stuff, I’d try to explain it, but they just wouldn’t get it.”

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture strongly support an emphasis on creating a strong school culture. In the “Tragedy of Moral Education,” Institute founder James Davison Hunter points out that a student’s learning environment extends beyond school to their mental state, home life, and after school community.

“The form of character is one thing,” Hunter wrote, “but the substance of character always takes shape relative to the culture in which it is found.”

Improving school culture has a direct and positive impact on students’ character and other educational outcomes.

Educators working with marginalized students, such as refugees or those who don’t speak English, can find resources on “Flourishing From the Margins” from the Jubilee Centre for Character & Virtues.

The project offers research into thousands of young people in a wide variety of educational settings, as well as recommendations and teaching materials to help teachers develop character among their most vulnerable students.

Alabama teen’s determination to graduate high school pays off in a big way

Tarrant High School student Corey Patrick was determined to graduate, even if it meant he had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to catch a bus across town to a Birmingham, Alabama school.

Patrick attended Tarrant City School since the fourth grade but moved to the West End before his senior year and wanted to graduate with his friends. That required the early morning walks to the bus stop, followed by an hours long commute home every day after school, WBRC reports.

“Corey was getting up at 4:30 in the morning and had to be at the bus stop at 5:41 in the morning for the last year,” his mother, Felicia White, told the news site. “Even when he would get out of school he couldn’t get from that side of town until 5:19 when the bus runs back over there. So he doesn’t make it back this way until about 6:30 or 7 o’clock.”

The 2018 graduate was making his last trip in his graduation gown in late May when the bus driver snapped a photo and posted it online, prompting an outpouring of support for the determined teen.

The photo quickly went viral, and caught the attention of local radio host and comedian Rickey Smiley, who decided Patrick’s perseverance deserved special recognition. The 95.7 JAMZ host gifted the teen a $25,000 sport utility vehicle, the first vehicle the boy’s family has ever owned, WBRC reports.

“Little buddy wasn’t doing this trying to get no hype on the internet or trying to get no hype on the radio,” Smiley said, according to Yahoo! News. “He did it because he wanted his high school diploma.”

It is interesting how the media is trying to shape this narrative according to a utilitarian calculus. Close to  ten percent of young people operate within this moral compass according to James Davison Hunter, author of The Death of Culture. He writes, “The utilitarian moral culture regards personal self-interest as the focal point for moral decision making” (p. 159). It is a measure of Corey’s character how hard he worked to dispel this narrative.

Patrick could barely speak he was so overwhelmed with emotion by the generous gift.

“I just would like to thank everybody,” he told WBRC.

Smiley said he hopes the gift will send a message to all the kids working through adversity to stay on the right track.

“Even if there is another kid who caught the bus every day that didn’t get a car, let this inspire you because your blessing is coming,” Smiley said.

Patrick is now working to get his driver’s license, with the help of Smiley, and will attend Jacksonville University on a full scholarship. A separate Go Fund Me page set up to help cover expenses has raised more than $20,000, double the initial goal of $10,000.

All teachers want their students to learn to be resilient and persevere through adversity and be purposeful in the way they spend their lives.  Similarly, teachers want their students to make sacrifices to achieve worthy goals.  Resilience, perseverance, being purposeful and making sacrifices for what is good are crucial  building blocks for becoming a good and worthy person.  The UK’s The Jubilee Centre  has an excellent resource for teacher use in its lesson plans for teaching resilience here.

 

‘Daughters of Worth’ nonprofit reaches out to engage, inspire young girls

North Carolina mother Liz Liles is making it her life’s mission to help young girls in her community.

Liles told The Daily Reflector she was adopted as a child and struggled during her youth with questions about why her birth mother gave her up, an insecurity that had a strong impact on her life and ultimately compelled her to reach out to young girls questioning their own worth.

“A lot of that deep-rooted insecurity stays with you, and it really begins to shape the way that you see the world,” she said. “Unless you really heal from those wounds, they just go with you.”

That realization became especially clear when Liles, a mother of two boys, moved back to North Carolina after a failed marriage. She accepted a job at The Salvation Army that put her in regular contact with young girls facing serious life traumas, including one girl who was gang raped, and another who fears for her life and sleeps with a knife under her pillow.

“That really opened my eyes to the needs that are here,” Liles said. “We don’t realize the depth of the need that’s in our own backyard.”

Especially when children feel abandoned by their parents, deep psychological deficits persist. Research shows the heightened importance here of adult examples, encouragement, and mentorship. Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture state that it is “far more poignant and influential” than merely classroom instruction (The Content of Their Character, p. 285).

The situation convinced Liles to create the nonprofit Daughters of Worth in 2015. With the help of volunteers, Liles created GLAM (Girls Living A Mission) groups at area elementary schools to mentor young girls. The GLAM Girls, which have steadily grown from about a dozen to roughly 90 girls, take field trips together and work to help groups like the Community Crossroads Center, a Greenville homeless shelter.

“We try to give them experiences they may not have had outside the group,” volunteer Alyssa Hardee said.

“I guess my experience of being a school counselor, seeing what some girls are up against, I just see so many of them struggling with not having positive interactions or role models,” she said. “I just thought it was really important to be someone who could make a difference.”

In more recent years, Liles has expanded the program to offer “Notes of Hope” for first- and second-grade girls to offer regular, positive affirmations, as well as “Grace Gifts,” which offers lessons about financial management and philanthropy. In total, the Daughters of Worth programs have reached about 300 girls.

Kelli Joyner, a counselor at H.B. Sugg Elementary, said many girls at her school have received the “Notes of Hope,” and it’s obvious Daughters of Worth is making a big impact.

“They tell me, ‘I have my other ones pinned up in my room,’” she said. “It means a lot to these girls.”

When teachers and principals think about how to motivate students who have suffered setbacks and adversity in their lives, there are lesson plans at the UK’s the Jubilee Centre. These lessons plans focus on flourishing from the margins and can be found here.

High school students spend Spring Break building home for elderly widow

Boston College High School student Tai Thurber spent his April vacation in Belize, but he wasn’t lounging on the beach or checking out the local tourist attractions.

Instead, the Dedham, Massachusetts 17-year-old and 11 of his classmates toiled in the hot and humid Central American climate for three days to construct a new home for a 72-year-old woman who lost her husband and was left with nothing, Wicked Local reports.

The work, part of a joint program between the school and Hand In Hand Ministries, is designed to expose students to different cultures and the life-changing effect their hard work can have on folks in need, whether it’s through housing, healthcare or education.

“I’d never been to Belize and it was kind of a new experience,” Thurber told the news site. “I wanted to go because we wouldn’t be going to touristy places and we would get a feel for the real culture of the people.”

“It was 80-90 degrees with 100 percent humidity most of the time,” he said. “It was very different climate than we are used to here.”

The students hauled materials, hammered, panted the home, which was constructed on concrete slabs to keep it high and dry during flooding. As part of the Hand in Hand project, the 72-year-old widow agreed to help on two builds, and she worked alongside the students throughout the construction.

“She couldn’t really hammer, she helped paint a lot,” Thurber said. “It was cool to see that even though she couldn’t do the hammering she still wanted to contribute.”

Students also attended a house blessing on the fourth day of their trip, and bought a mattress and supplies for the new home owner, Wicked Local reports.

“When she moved in she only had a mat and some clothes,” Thurber said. “It didn’t seem like a big deal to us, but it was life changing for her.”

Catholic schools are particularly effective in promoting community service, researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture found. Political scientist David Campbell found “that private school students were more likely to engage in community service than their public school counterparts and that the Catholic schools primarily drove the effects” (The Content of Their Character, p. 122).

Students paid their own way for the trip, and raised funds to give out gifts to kids at a daycare for children with HIV. Thurber said the mission work, and his experiences with the local folks in Belize, offered lessons for students, as well.

“I was surprised by the happiness of the people there despite the fact that they had so little,” he said. “They seemed happier than we are.”

“They say you get more out of these trips than you give,” Thurber said. “It’s not a cliché. It actually happens.”

An Insight Series paper titled ‘A Simple Act of Charity? The Characteristics and Complexities of Charitable Giving in the United Kingdom‘ from the UK’s The Jubilee Centre is available here for teachers and principals who share the idea that charitable giving of one’s time and effort helps develop students’ moral and citizenship formation.

 

Foster Grandparents volunteers help boost reading skills for Tucson’s refugee students

When 10-year-old Tirhas Hagos moved to Tucson, Arizona from Ethiopia with her family two years ago, she didn’t know English.

Today, the fourth-grader receives high marks for literacy, including fluency and comprehension, thanks in large part to volunteers with the Senior Corps Foster Grandparents program.

Reading mastery is usually completed by the second grade. Social scientists have long recognized that few variables are more determinative of juvenile deliquesce later in life than the inability to read. By addressing this core academic skill within an identified at risk student population, these grandparents have made a major contribution to their community. Moreover, there is almost no substitute for the concrete care and example of a teacher or adult in a student’s life. Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture that study moral development observed, “The moral example of teachers and other adults unquestionably complemented the formal instruction students received, it was far more poignant to, and influential upon, the students themselves.”

The Foster Grandparents, a program funded by the federal Corporation for National and Community Service, partners volunteers over the age of 55 with teachers for 15 to 40 hours per week to help students struggling with reading, the Arizona Daily Star reports.

“I love my work,” said Susan Mason, a former executive assistant at Raytheon Missile Systems who now works three days per week as a literacy tutor at John B. Wright Elementary School. “I feel fantastic when they get it. They have trouble with comprehension, but when they understand what they are reading, it is the best feeling in the world.”

With word search puzzles, and playing games like Old Maid, Go Fish and Uno, Mason helps students build their vocabulary and rewards them with stickers to decorate their folders. Students work through books about UFOs, and firewalkers on the island of Bora Bora, and discuss the stories afterward to ensure they understand the words.

“These students are amazing,” Mason said. “Many speak three languages.”

Wright Principal Deanna Campos said the Foster Grandparents program is making a significant impact at the school, where about half of the pre-school through fifth grade students are refugees. Despite the language barrier faced by many of them – Wright’s refugee students represent 22 different cultures and languages – the school scored a B-plus on standardized tests.

“They go every day and read to an adult without anyone judging them,” Campos said. “The students are learning English, and when they read with Susan, they develop the fluency they need to be successful readers.”

Mason is among about 30 volunteers who work for the Senior Corps Foster Grandparents in the Tucson area, including at schools in the Flowing Wells, Tucson, Sunnyside and Marana districts. In Arizona, the program is sponsored by Northern Arizona University’s Civic Service Institute, and operates on a budget of about $750,000 a year.

The funding covers a small staff, as well as a small stipend and mileage, fingerprinting and background checks, for roughly 100 volunteers statewide.

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students will find information, strategies and lesson plans at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

 

 

Students step up to change classmate’s life with service dog

Members of East High School’s Key Club saw an opportunity to change a fellow student’s life, and they’re making it happen.

Nick Mace, a senior at the Pueblo, Colorado high school, will graduate this year despite numerous medical complications in his life that result in regular seizures, which means he can never spend time alone, Fox 21 reports.

“There is not a time when Nicolas is not with someone who can help take care of him,” Mace’s mother, Mary Ruff, told the news site. “He’s almost 18, the boy needs some independence.”

The family found a solution – a dog named Maddy from the Pikes Peak Human Society – but could not afford to train the dog to work as Mace’s service companion. That’s when East High’s Key Club stepped in, partnering with the East High School Boosters Club to set up a GoFundMe page with goal of raising $3,500 for the training, food and supplies.

The fundraiser generated more than $2,200 from 23 donors in the first month, and is well on the way to meeting the goal.

This story demonstrates that learning the value of serving others does not need a big program or a big investment. Opportunities are all around us for those with eyes to see. Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture argue that “the moral and missional ethos of a school was reinforced through a range of practices, or routinized actions all oriented toward giving tangible expressions to the school’s values and beliefs.” The reward of helping others is catching.

“This is probably the most impactful project I have ever been a part of because I get to see how it’s actually going to help, in my community, in my school,” Key Club President Jacquelyn Arellano told Fox 21.

“You can’t put a price tag on what these kids did for another person,” club sponsor Janae Passalaqua said. “There is no better feeling than doing something for someone else.”

Mace suffered from bilateral club feet as an infant, and later developed Kawasaki’s disease, which led to multiple giant coronary aneurysms. He also suffered a traumatic brain injury as a child, which caused his ongoing seizures.

“It has been increasingly worse seizures, increasingly poor short-term memory and even long-term memory is being affected,” Ruff said, adding that she’s grateful to students who stepped up to help her son do more on his own.

Mace, meanwhile, is pretty excited himself.

“She is just going to be there, like a friend,” he said of Maddy.

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship in their students will find information, strategies and lesson plans at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

Student starts birthday tradition to help the homeless

Fresno State University senior Jasmine Castillo started a tradition for her 21st birthday, and it’s since turned into a family affair that’s also inspired her 7-year-old sister to serve.

The public health administration major decided four years ago she would rather spend her 21st birthday helping others than celebrating by having her first legal adult beverage, so she launched a fundraiser online called “Jaz’s Birthday Wish” to buy toiletries for the Poverello House homeless shelter in downtown Fresno.

“For me growing up, people always wanted to drink,” Castillo told The Collegian. “And I was just like, it was never a thing for me. Why do we have to do that?” “How about we do something more positive?” she said. “More beneficial.”

For the first couple of years Castillo delivered supplies to the Poverello House on her birthday, simply dropping off the donations. But in 2017 she decided to take a more active role, and recruited family to personally hand out packages of toiletries, as well water and burritos.

This year Castello raised $356.25 to buy ingredients to make 290 burritos and make 284 packs of toiletries. She spent her birthday cooking up the burritos with an assembly line of family helping out, including her 7-year-old sister.

“I want to signify that I’m here to help, that I want to make a change,” she said. “I’m always telling my family I’m going to change the world.”

Dulce Sora, a friend of Castello’s from Edison High School, told The Collegian the birthday tradition is just one of several ways her friend reaches out to help the less fortunate in the community. Castello also volunteers with the Muscular Dystrophy Association and Saint Agnes Medical Center, and was recognized by District 31 Assemblyman Henry Perea in 2012 as “Woman of the Year” for her efforts.

“It didn’t just start. She’s always been involved through programs like this, or she’s always tried to help everybody,” Sora said. “If they need help, she always wants to be the first one there.”

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture asked, “What accounts for a diversity of moral commitments?” “Why would one youngster avoid the homeless person and another either help him with money or talk with him about his problems?” Social scientists typically favor a range of background factors, such as race, class, and gender to account for such differences. But against this, the child’s “underlying attachment to a moral culture was the single most important and consistent factor in explaining the variation in their moral judgments.”

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students can find information and strategies at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre. In The Jubilee Centre’s own words, the following illustrates how the Centre views it work.  “The Jubilee Centre is a pioneering interdisciplinary research centre on character, virtues and values in the interest of human flourishing.  The Centre is a leading informant on policy and practice through its extensive range of projects contributes to a renewal of character virtues in both individuals and society.”

UI students launch nonprofit to help disabled classmates navigate college

University of Iowa student Michael Penniman is changing the way disabled students experience college with the help of two friends and a nonprofit start-up they launched last year.

Penniman suffered an injury during a wrestling match with a friend in 2012 that left him a quadriplegic. After years of recovery that required him to relearn to talk and use his arms, he began taking classes at Des Moines Area Community College.

Two years ago, Penniman transferred to the University of Iowa as a sophomore, but he was often left stranded by the home health care companies he relied on to get out of bed and to class each day, the Iowa City Press-Citizen reports.

When his care providers missed shifts, Penniman reached out to his friend and fellow undergraduate Peter Easler, who eventually took over when Penniman’s regular caregiver broke her foot.

That’s when the two – along with another friend, Jacob Newcomb – hatched the idea to create a more reliable, student-run business to help their disabled classmates, while also providing a way for reliable college students to earn extra money.

According to the Press-Citizen:

Called Students Care, the idea is to use Medicaid waiver funds — which they hope to one day supplement with grant funding and other fundraisers — to pay students who perform home care in a more reliable and more personable way.

The startup is very much in the early stages. It is a registered nonprofit, with 12 employees, which they pay from $8.50 to $11 per hour. Other than Penniman, who himself is involved in the startup’s operation, they have one other client, a student at Kirkwood Community College.

Penniman, now a 25-year-old junior, trains new employees on how to meet clients’ needs, while Easler focuses on maintaining a high quality of care as they grow the business.

“That was the biggest thing for me for a while. Every day, I would ask, ‘How is this year compared to last year?’” Easler told the AP. “Because I don’t want to build something up if it’s not exceeding expectations.”

Newcomb said the concept of students helping students works well because it means help is always nearby, and the connections encourage disabled students to get more involved with UI’s activities and clubs.

In the book, The Death of Character, sociologist James Davison Hunter has highlighted research that shows that peer-to-peer service heightens the self-esteem among participants.  Not only is the founder of Students Care a person with disabilities, he has found ways to deliver his service in ways that show respect and establish new relationships.

“For college kids who aren’t disabled, its super easy to get involved in things,” he said. “We don’t want there to be any barriers for students with disabilities to go to a four-year university where they can enjoy it the whole time they are here.”

Teachers and principals interested in strengthening character formation in their school may find information and strategies at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

Teenager replaces a neighbor’s flag

Moses Lake, Washington resident Junior Villarreal’s home security camera recently caught a young man on his front porch, and he took to Facebook to identify the culprit.

In early March, Villarreal found a plastic bag hanging from his front door, and inside was a fresh American flag. Surveillance footage revealed a teen leaving the bag behind, and Villarreal snapped an image of the young man and posted it online, Fox News reports.

“Attention. He didn’t do anything wrong but does anyone know who this kid is? He drives that light blue jeep parked on the street,” Villarreal posted to Facebook. “Well I just bought a house that has a flag pole with an old tore up flag still on it and wasn’t gonna change it out until the weather got better but this kid was kind enuf to stop at my house and leave a new flag on my door knob yesterday. That’s what was in the bag.”

“Well anyways, I just wanted to thank him and tell him I appreciate what he did,” Villarreal wrote. “That was so generous of him.”

The Facebook post led Villarreal to 18-year-old David Phillips, whom he thanked and offered to repay him for the flag – an offer that was rejected.

Phillips’ mother, Simone Phillips, explained to iFiber One News that her two teen sons grew up in the military, and they schemed together on the patriotic act “out of respect for the flag.”

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture found that when individuals are embedded in larger spheres of moral obligation, moral behavior is enhanced. Three areas are noted in their research: immigration, religion, and the military. They found that people “respect and honor those serving, those who have served, and those students thinking about joining. This is particularly true in rural high schools. In this incident the flag is not a symbol of an ongoing culture war, but an act of kindness and neighborliness rooted in this larger context of meaning.

“Simone says David and her 16-year old son Luke were traveling through the area and noticed the flag. Later that day, she said the boys came home and talked about getting a new flag for the home’s owner,” according to the news site.

“After some debate, Simone said her son Luke pulled his American flag off his bedroom wall and offered it up as the home’s replacement flag. On Saturday (March 2), just after 4p.m., David hung a garbage bag with the flag in it on Junior’s front door.”

Villarreal said the gift was a welcomed surprise, and it serves as a testament to both Phillips’ character and the positive influence youth can have on their community.

“With all the negative news about school shootings, it was really nice to see a teenager do something like this,” he told iFiber One News.

Many folks responding to Villarreal’s Facebook post agreed.

“There is future hope for our country!” Michael Roxbury wrote. “Great kid!”

“There needs to be more kids like him,” Stephanie Hale added.

For teachers and principals interested in fostering qualities of good citizens in their students support can be found at the UK’s Jubilee Centre.

 

 

Waffle House waitress earns $16,000 scholarship after her kind act goes viral

Waffle House waitress Evoni Williams said she was just doing her job, but local leaders contend her act of kindness for an elderly patron displayed the type of character that deserves recognition. Williams was working a hectic morning shift at the La Marque, Texas restaurant when an elderly man quietly asked her to cut his ham. She thought nothing of it, CNN reports.

“I was just like, ‘Sure! If you need help, that’s what I am here for,” the 18-year-old said. “My cook was calling my name to pick up food I had on the board, but I continued to cut his ham.” The two chatted briefly and a customer waiting to be seated snapped a picture and posted it to Facebook. The act of good will soon went viral, earning Williams widespread recognition and a college scholarship.

Adrien Charpentier, known by restaurant staff as “Mr. Karaoke” for his crooning at the local senior center, told CNN he’s recently struggled with his health, particularly muscle weakness in his hands, and waitresses at the Waffle House often help him out. “I can hold a fork fine and dandy, but to cut it looks like I’m going to stab somebody,” he said, adding that the help from Williams and other waitresses is greatly appreciated.

“It means a lot,” he said. “I need help and the waitresses issue it to me.” Williams’ gesture also meant a lot to La Marque Mayor Bobby Hocking, who came across the photo of her cutting Charpentier’s meat on his Facebook feed and decided to highlight the good deed. “Somebody tagged me and it immediately, it just touched my heart,” he said. “It’s so wonderful that the younger generation cares about the older generation.”

Character is most often revealed in small unseen acts of kindness. Though this action went viral, what is significant about Ms. Williams was her automatic response of kindness. It was not because she wanted some kind of self-advancement or sought self-actualization. It was simply an immediate need, which she met quietly. Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture found that character is revealed when the motivation of the person is simply “to be their best self.”  The act itself was an end, not a means to some other end. This is what makes Nini’s kindness so telling. It was this authenticity that made her action so compelling and inspiring.

Hocking declared March 8 Evoni ‘Nini’ Williams Day in hopes of building on the good will. “There is a lot of love in La Marque, Texas,” Hocking said, “And we intend to perpetuate that.”

But Hocking wasn’t the only one touched by the viral photo.

Austin A. Lane, president of the nearby Texas Southern University, also took notice. “Many of the college’s alumni saw Williams’ story and wanted to help,” CNN reports. “Through the power of social media and good will, Texas Southern University awarded Williams a $16,000 scholarship.”

“It is awesome,” Williams said. “I feel excited and happy.”

Williams told CNN she plans to study business administration in hopes of one day opening her own restaurant or hair salon.

“We wanted to reward Evoni’s act of kindness and let her know that good deeds do not go unnoticed,” TSU administrator Melinda Spaulding said. “She has the character of the type of students we want at Texas Southern University.”

For more on developing this kind of selfless behavior, see “The Moral Ecology of Formation” in The Content of Their Character.

Teachers and principals interested in character formation in their school may find help by consulting the UK’s Jubilee Centre.