I am elated to be selected as one of 16 Fulbright Scholars out of hundreds of applicants. This summer I will spend approximately one month traveling the entire country of South Africa to learn about their educational system, and culture. Specifically, this seminar is focused on how educators in South Africa prepare students from diverse backgrounds for both postsecondary study and the workplace while ensuring academic success. We'll study the controversial issue of teaching English as a second language, learn how South Africa manages schooling with students and staff inflicted with HIV/AIDS; visit schools that are models of integration in a post-apartheid era where Black and White children learn together equitably. Read my curriculum project description below; click on the full screen icon to enlarge or download as a Word document from My Project Docs in the sidebar:
Read this doc on Scribd: Fulbright Hays Curriculum Project Description
Project Description Fulbright-Hays Seminar to South Africa 2008 Kendra L. Hearn, Ph.D. Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction (preK-12) West Bloomfield School District Project Title Convergent Paths: Creating Equity and Opportunity through Education in the United States and South Africa Project Abstract The educational histories of the United States and South Africa as impacted by issues of race and segregation are clearly similar. This project will explore the policies, teaching and learning philosophies, pedagogies, and programmatic initiatives adopted by the country of South Africa, its respective provinces and their schools to create equitable and accessible learning opportunities for students of all races in their post-apartheid era. Comparisons will be drawn to the same initiatives taken on by the United States in its post-civil rights era. The project will seek to investigate how South Africa may have learned from the Unites States’ initiatives (e.g. desegregation through bussing, mandatory integration, compulsory education, NCLB – data disaggregation by subgroup, vocational education/Perkins, college readiness and support programs, etc.), what approaches they may have purposefully avoided and new ones they may have developed that the U.S. and/or its schools may be able to adopt. The project findings will be shared in multimedia formats, including published papers, blogs, and digital stories. Particular focus will be paid to the teaching of literacy. Project Narrative Convergent Paths seeks to uncover how and why separation and inequality in schooling persist in both the United States and South Africa using the following inquiry questions as a guide: • • • Have the people of South Africa found solutions to their racial and economic divides, particularly as it pertains to education that we in America have yet to discover? In what ways are educators of South Africa attempting to mitigate the opportunity gaps that result in performance and achievement gaps along racial and socio-economic lines? Do Black and White children attend and succeed in school together? If so, what characterizes their coexistence and success? What is the epistemological stance of classroom educators and administrators to issues of equity and access to disadvantaged youth? How are their philosophies employed in their daily practice, school structures, programs, and policies? • The framework for my observations is based on seminal documents, policies, and laws of both countries, including the U.S. Constitution and Brown v Board of Education, as well as the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, widely regarded as one of the most progressive and radical. Its accompanying action plan emphasized the importance of education by stating, “Everyone has the right: (a) to a basic education, including adult basic education; and (b) to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible.” This project seeks to identify those reasonable measures and how they have been made available and accessible progressively. It will embark to discover which parts of the action plan have come into fruition and what remains to be realized. All the while, comparisons to the United States’ approaches to attempt to create the same type of equity and access will be drawn. Findings from this project will be published in a variety of media, including blogs, published papers, and digital stories. These media will help to bring back to the students, teachers, administrators, elected officials, parents and community members within my circle of influence: • • • • • • strategies to improve critical (higher order thinking), traditional (reading/writing) and new (technological) literacies among students, especially boys who seem to lag behind our female students in reading and writing and our ESL population as compared to our native-born population. programs or initiatives to increase equity and inclusion between the racial and socio-economic groups in our schools and larger school community; descriptors of effective instructional strategies, policies, or school structures that are more culturally relevant and responsive, as well as more engaging to learners with a variety of learning needs; characterizations of schools that are racially diverse with critical attributes of their success for emulation; systemic approaches to increase participation of boys, ethnic minority, poor, and language learning students in paths of study toward college readiness and/or high-skilled work and technology-related paths; and a general awareness and appreciation for South African culture and the similarities in their country’s civil rights struggle and ours.
Project Description Fulbright-Hays Seminar to South Africa 2008 Kendra L. Hearn, Ph.D. Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum & Instruction (preK-12) West Bloomfield School District Project Title Convergent Paths: Creating Equity and Opportunity through Education in the United States and South Africa Project Abstract The educational histories of the United States and South Africa as impacted by issues of race and segregation are clearly similar. This project will explore the policies, teaching and learning philosophies, pedagogies, and programmatic initiatives adopted by the country of South Africa, its respective provinces and their schools to create equitable and accessible learning opportunities for students of all races in their post-apartheid era. Comparisons will be drawn to the same initiatives taken on by the United States in its post-civil rights era. The project will seek to investigate how South Africa may have learned from the Unites States’ initiatives (e.g. desegregation through bussing, mandatory integration, compulsory education, NCLB – data disaggregation by subgroup, vocational education/Perkins, college readiness and support programs, etc.), what approaches they may have purposefully avoided and new ones they may have developed that the U.S. and/or its schools may be able to adopt. The project findings will be shared in multimedia formats, including published papers, blogs, and digital stories. Particular focus will be paid to the teaching of literacy. Project Narrative Convergent Paths seeks to uncover how and why separation and inequality in schooling persist in both the United States and South Africa using the following inquiry questions as a guide: • • • Have the people of South Africa found solutions to their racial and economic divides, particularly as it pertains to education that we in America have yet to discover? In what ways are educators of South Africa attempting to mitigate the opportunity gaps that result in performance and achievement gaps along racial and socio-economic lines? Do Black and White children attend and succeed in school together? If so, what characterizes their coexistence and success? What is the epistemological stance of classroom educators and administrators to issues of equity and access to disadvantaged youth? How are their philosophies employed in their daily practice, school structures, programs, and policies? • The framework for my observations is based on seminal documents, policies, and laws of both countries, including the U.S. Constitution and Brown v Board of Education, as well as the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, widely regarded as one of the most progressive and radical. Its accompanying action plan emphasized the importance of education by stating, “Everyone has the right: (a) to a basic education, including adult basic education; and (b) to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible.” This project seeks to identify those reasonable measures and how they have been made available and accessible progressively. It will embark to discover which parts of the action plan have come into fruition and what remains to be realized. All the while, comparisons to the United States’ approaches to attempt to create the same type of equity and access will be drawn. Findings from this project will be published in a variety of media, including blogs, published papers, and digital stories. These media will help to bring back to the students, teachers, administrators, elected officials, parents and community members within my circle of influence: • • • • • • strategies to improve critical (higher order thinking), traditional (reading/writing) and new (technological) literacies among students, especially boys who seem to lag behind our female students in reading and writing and our ESL population as compared to our native-born population. programs or initiatives to increase equity and inclusion between the racial and socio-economic groups in our schools and larger school community; descriptors of effective instructional strategies, policies, or school structures that are more culturally relevant and responsive, as well as more engaging to learners with a variety of learning needs; characterizations of schools that are racially diverse with critical attributes of their success for emulation; systemic approaches to increase participation of boys, ethnic minority, poor, and language learning students in paths of study toward college readiness and/or high-skilled work and technology-related paths; and a general awareness and appreciation for South African culture and the similarities in their country’s civil rights struggle and ours.
