pedro noguera

Book Giveaway Winner: Creating the Opportunity to Learn … by A Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera

by Jose Vilson on October 30, 2011

And the winner of the Book Giveaway is …

Susan S.

In a few minutes, I’ll be e-mailing you for your information. Everyone else, thanks for participating and stay tuned for the next giveaway, which is happening in a week or so! And it’s a movie!

In the meantime, check the book out at your favorite retailers!

For more information, ASCD has:

· Select sample chapters from the book here;
· A free study guide that goes along with the book here; and
· A recorded Talks with an Author interview featuring Wade and Pedro here.

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Book Giveaway: Creating the Opportunity to Learn … by Boykin and Noguera

by Jose Vilson on October 13, 2011

Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap by A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera

Hello and welcome to this installment of The Jose Vilson Book Giveaway, where I’ll do my best to offer the latest and greatest books I can scrounge up … and all for free.

< whooping and hollering here >

This week, I’m offering a book for any and all contestants who wish to participate. Before I continue, though …

The rules are as follows:

1. Leave a comment at the bottom of this post with the words: “You can’t stop my go. I been born to be where I am.”

2. Hit “Like” in my fan page Jose Vilson (and leave the same comment on my page!).

That’s IT!

The last day to enter your comment is Thursday, October 20th, 2011 at 11:59pm. A winner will be randomly selected from all the commenters. Multiple entries are not allowed. Once you win, I’ll contact you directly with further details. Please make sure you respond quickly (within 48 hours of my choosing the winner), or you’ll lose the drawing.

The book I’m giving away in this entry is Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap by A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera. I reviewed the book recently and I like it already. Here’s a few things I said then:

“To a teacher, some of these strategies seem obvious, but they don’t settle for the seemingly understood or ostensible. They dig deeper into the psychology of these strategies and why they’re so important. Unlike some research reviewers who settle for just aggregating their colleagues’ work, Boykin and Noguera hope to make a meaningful discourse in which all can participate. Unlike some researchers who only speak in professorial language when bringing up suggestions about their work, this duo prefers to clearly define and explicate these rather complex ideas in a clear and concise manner. The one piece that some educators might have asked for from Boykin and Noguera is the how, meaning how the ideas they proffer look like for the average teacher on a day-to-day basis. While there are some specific examples of these models in the book, the day-to-day narratives of how these practices look like daily would be useful if not necessary.”

It’s got real talk. Also included is actual advice from students. A well-rounded book in my opinion.

For more information, ASCD has:

· Select sample chapters from the book here;
· A free study guide that goes along with the book here; and
· A recorded Talks with an Author interview featuring Wade and Pedro here;

I’ve added this as my first full book on my iPad, so you know it’s good. Good luck to all the contestants!

ASCD in no way sanctioned this giveaway, but because I’m a rebel, I’m having it anyways. Yes sir!

Jose, who’s got a few more like these …

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Book Review: Creating the Opportunity to Learn … by Boykin and Noguera

by Jose Vilson on September 19, 2011

Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap by A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera

A. Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera are amongst the most respected education professors in the nation, but with their book Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap, they seek to turn the extensive research review they’ve done in their careers and turn it into practical solutions for educators. Unlike other research-dense books, they understand the pressing need for people to make sense of what’s happening in controlled environments expressed in papers and the day-to-day experiences that K-12 teachers see happening in front of them. They begin with a framework for understanding the basis for why they write such a book, confronting the intersecting education and race theories present in the zeitgeist of current pedagogy. From there, they take on a variety of topics such as differences in how children of different backgrounds learn best, and the relationship between teacher perceptions of students and the effects they have on students.

To a teacher, some of these strategies seem obvious, but they don’t settle for the seemingly understood or ostensible. They dig deeper into the psychology of these strategies and why they’re so important. Unlike some research reviewers who settle for just aggregating their colleagues’ work, Boykin and Noguera hope to make a meaningful discourse in which all can participate. Unlike some researchers who only speak in professorial language when bringing up suggestions about their work, this duo prefers to clearly define and explicate these rather complex ideas in a clear and concise manner. The one piece that some educators might have asked for from Boykin and Noguera is the how, meaning how the ideas they proffer look like for the average teacher on a day-to-day basis. While there are some specific examples of these models in the book, the day-to-day narratives of how these practices look like daily would be useful if not necessary.

But that isn’t the express purpose of this book. As education researchers well versed in speaking to communities, Boykin and Noguera’s Creating The Opportunity To Learn … makes for a pleasant and informative read that accurately builds the bridge between the research to educators. They rightly left the how up to educators willing to take up the challenge.

Mr. Vilson, who helps build bridges …

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The Question Is: Are You Part of the Conspiracy?

by Jose Vilson on March 5, 2010

Pedro Noguera

Reading through the plethora of feedback given not only to this blog, but the rest of the blogs out there, I noticed a big part of the Teach for America event missing in all of our posts. For the purposes of this post, I’m glad we did since I’ve mulled it over so many times, it’s made me stop dead in my tracks twice since Wednesday.

Dr. Pedro Noguera made good mention of the schools-to-prisons funnel system, highlighting how so many schools are structured like prisons and how people have looked at 3rd – 4th grade test scores to determine the need for more prisons. My biggest takeaway in his rant was the following:

“I’ve been to prisons before, speaking in front of the inmates with guards all around the premises, and I’ve said, ‘There is a conspiracy to keep you in prison, and there are people whose jobs and income depend on keeping you here. There are policymakers planning to build more prisons right now, and whole towns in upstate New York that rely upon their prisons for jobs and economic development of those towns. There are corporations that run prisons for profit, taking advantage of the low wages prisoners receive for the work they do. Even the guards in this room understand their jobs depend on you being here. But my question to you is: are you part of the conspiracy?’”

The whole room paused. Most people in the audience had never read Noguera’s work , but even those of us who did stood silent while he struck that question. What’s often missing in the questions about responsibility is whether or not we’ve actually addressed that conspiracy. How do we play into the very stereotypes and limits set for us? How do we build bridges that address the needs of communities of color from a perspective of self-empowerment?

For that matter, when do the high-brow people in our communities stop talking down to those communities and integrate them into their work? Those of us who’ve had an opportunity to get enlightened act more like the Illuminati than illuminated: privileged and exclusive versus humbled and inclusive, as if the work we do gives us a certain holier-than-thou-art status instead of making us de facto servants for others.

And does that make us, those of us with Internet access who can read at a high school level or above with connections and a certain level of income, part of the conspiracy too? Let me not ruffle any feathers, though.

Mr. Vilson, who doesn’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but he is, so that’s how it comes out …

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Notes from The Black and Latino Males in High School Forum

December 3, 2009 Jose

On November 24th, 2009 at around 9am, I had the distinct pleasure of going to the NYU Metropolitan Center Policy for Urban Education Educational Forum. The topic was “How are Black and Latino males faring in our high schools?” hosted and moderated by Dr. Pedro Noguera, professor in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development [...]

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