Maintenance swooped in and before you knew it, a simple wall that served as slideaway divider for courses in literature, science, mathematics, robotics, advisement, Critical Thinking and much more revealed to become a ballroom proportion of celebration.  2019’s Math & Science and Classic Upward Bound adapted, grew, and learned how to meet the ever changing needed of a world often insensitive to populations of need. 

Not enough can be said of an institution that houses a program that reins in students that would easily be lost to the opportunities of promise and potential and present these as possibility (say that 5 times fast).  Individuals that will go on to become actuaries, medical pioneers in cures for cancer, doctors, civil rights activists, legislators, medical emergency and program staff, educators, and a legion more of changing the future individuals are motivated, accelerated, and prepared for a future that initially held no potential for their success. 

Not enough can be said of the efficiency of the maintenance group that day in and day out can make the transformations needed at Del Tech to allow these day to day changes happen for the faculty and students.  When the students see this transformation, they see how an institution like Del Tech at Georgetown reinforces the idea of adapting to a world that changes around them.  Add to this the technical assets of running sound and displays As Mr. Russ Hamel did, and you again have the benefits of what seems to happen at the snap of fingers, and realization sinks in that media specialists such as Mr Russ, who served in the Air Force, used his expertise and patience to display from 6 – 8 projected images at one time during the Classic Upward Bound Awards Ceremony, and do with grace.

Students rose to the challenges of a country that at many turns puts down the element of diversity that hinders this country and forgets the diversity that made this country.  These students represent a huge diversity bank of education and potential, are here to remind the country, give us your all and we will make it all greater.

I get it, most people see the teaching profession as a summer off, part of the year, with holiday time position that offers so much more vacation and opportunity for freedom of most occupations.  I have found out if you are content to be a teacher, that is great, if you want to be an educator, there are never summers off.  Let me count the summers I have had off, the evenings I have not carried a master plan of tweaking a lesson, a day that went by without wondering how the increasing number of homeless, needy, and dependent future learners would get through this year, while meeting the demands of the state, the spaces of need from the community, and the expectations of my administration, while still meeting the expectations and success rates of their minds?  These facts of personal and mental needs never come close to registering the check boxes that state assessments measure, for most students their success of achieving a lesson, a unit, a semester of information never registers on a state report card; they made it a year with the food, shelter, and transportation they did not have before attending a particular school, which is a 100% success rate not measured on most state assessments nor asked for my the body at large.

I thought this and countless more as I thought about my own course, this summer, Critical Thinking. How do you take the idea of Critical Thinking, in this case presented by Wabi Sabi , and insure that the day to day changes that are occurring after the curriculum was created are still incorporated?  I realized the past institutes of Jane Goodall’s Roots and Shoots Community Mapping, the existence of YSA to encourage students to apply for funding and their own paths of seeing projects become reality, and learning how to apply Critical Thinking to discerning fake from real news,

a Jake Palenski (@jakepalenske)  workshop from Columbia University’s Scholastic Press Assocation, and making ideas come alive in their own community – add all those together like scrapple and you have a tool kit that shows how education is invigorating, exciting, and not just for an adult world, but for our world, every belief, every culture, every race, every interest area.  I realized realized students will see the amount of diversity and combining /intertwining.complexity that a lesson involved, seeing educators pull their experiences from 10 years ago to 10 days ago to, as well as using something as simple as Powerpoint to something as diverse as Trello, they get it. 

Investors in education see how English, Trig, Financial Education, Calculus, programming, Science, Biology, Foreign Language, and MORE all come together to create a better tomorrow and force that recognition of how diverse languages, cultures, beliefs, talents, and interests, that form neighborhoods, THAT makes America great, THAT makes American America, and always the lead for potential.  This starts from the recognition of the maintenance that allow this to happen, the supervisors to directors to find funding for these possibilities to occur, to the administrators that oversee the way to let the public know what is happening, back to the parents and students that buy into never ceasing to use their summer to grow, and grow in several directions. Being represented by

Photo Courtesy of Del Tech Photography

U.S. Delaware Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester and Diaz Bonville, Kent/Sussex County Outreach Coordinator – is a huge step in showing how all can be invested. Having the support of Dr. Annie Norman and emphasizing the role of literacy during this program, even more exciting.

In the next several posts through out the next few months, you will also see highlights of various approaches to how education is presented in a way that resembles real life, conquering problems that exist and finding ways to solve them.  In Critical Thinking, we asked students using the skills they were given from C.R.A.A.P (and there is alot of that out there) to discern using research skills, what is fake, what is real, and DO NOT rely on adults for that knowledge, rely on their             creativity .  Then moving forward using the skills of evaluating their immediate communities, map their communities to inventory their community’s assets and needs for human, environmental, and animal services.  Then moving into the students towards brainstorming solutions to those problems and needs not services by their community, what could students do?  In these steps the students were exposed to at least 4 different strategies developed from individuals from the U.K., Texas, Africa, and more locations and learned that scaffolding their learning is not a deficiency, but an asset when recognized. They learned that Math, Science, Language, English and technology all have a place to change the world for the better.  The realized the Trio of strength comes from individuals working together to smash the paradigms so many place on education, those that to base educations results on a neat little checklist or box, and walk away satisfied.  

It is up to past, current, and future generations to change the paths of how education evolves, is measured, and is given for the most productivity for our immediate communities.  It is a pleasure to devote a year round application on education for that aim, and the Upward Bound Program has so many layers of education pushing on educational information received from all year long, it is no wonder we see students accepting full four year opportunities after leaving this program.  Education is a Trio of collaboration and it begins with each one of us to change that archaic ideal of what education is.  And have fun as it is happening.