My group and I are all undergraduate students, we got caught in the middle of finals week and Spring Break, but that doesn't mean we haven't been hustling and getting work done!
Here are our updates:
- We have had to move our afterschool program start to this coming Fall, only because then we will have a full curriculum and all our books and fundraising ready.'
- Spencer Claxton is working on our annual allocation budget for money for class time and books and t-shirts.
- We're hosting a panel in the mean time! Here are the details
Title: "The Dream of Hispanic Youngsters: Early Childhood & American Opportunity."Yes, we mean Nobel-laurate, James J. Heckman! And yes, immigration scholar extraordinaire! Molly Thayer, Directof of Literacy at the Urban Education Institute, and Catherine Corr, PhD Candidate in Early Childhood Education and Second Language Acquisition at UI-Urbana-Champaigne!
Plan A panel: James Heckman, Roberto Gonzalez, Molly Thayer, and Catherine Corr.
Topic of Discussion:
Where does immigration, economic opportunity, and early childhood development and education intersect? According to these four separate perspectives and fields of study, what can young Hispanics int he United States expect to make of themselves? What can they expect to achieve, or not? What trajectories of life can they most likely expect to follow given their circumstances from these four perspectives?
And finally, what role does public policy play to change these trajectories, if they are bad? And how should public policy address and support these Hispanic youngsters? What is the cost? What are the benefits? And are willing to pay? Should we even pay?
We've just about got both Heckman and Gonzales. Thayer and Corr have confirmed.
3. We're also simultaneously reaching out to book organizations for book donations, while also figuring
out how our organization will function and consolidate responsibilities.
4. We're also in training season! We're holding professional development training sessions for our
tutors and members so that we can grow our capacity in the future while also understanding how
to teach children in an educationally productive classroom environment that we have to learn how to
build too!
