Five ways to connect

Radio Commentary

Here are the top five ways for parents to connect with their child’s teacher:

At the start of the school year, make arrangements to meet the teacher. This is an ideal time to share information about your child so that the student and teacher can make the best possible connection.

Take a “no fault” approach when dealing with difficult issues at school. Blaming teachers or classmates only strains relationships. 

Join forces with teachers to reach a common goal: helping your child overcome difficulties and find success.

Drop your child’s teacher a note any time. 

Do you have a question about homework? Is your child upset about something that happened at home? Were you really impressed by a school project? Pass it along.

Call your child’s teacher for a specific reason — or for no reason at all. Teachers appreciate hearing from you. It’s a good idea to ask teachers beforehand for good times to call.

Bring a list of questions to parent-teacher conferences. 

Prepared questions help the conference stay focused and keep you on the issues that matter.  

These ideas can help get the school year off to a good start.

Road to readiness

Radio Commentary

Making sure that every child comes to school ready to learn is a worthy national education goal. But we are not yet nearly to that point. 

One researcher examined the steps that must be taken to make it happen. The researcher determined that the quality of the parent-child relationship is key to language development. 

Children need rich verbal experiences to draw from as they enter school. Parents should talk to their children all the time and read to them as often as possible. 

Parents should share stories, and ask open-ended questions to spur thinking skills. This helps get children excited about learning new things.
According to the research, there are several preconditions required for learning. 
Good health comes first. Then come unhurried time with family, safe and supportive environments, and special help for families in desperate need. 
These items are common sense, but unfortunately not always in great supply.
The researcher wrote: “These principles are deceptively simple. Assuring that every child has the opportunity to learn requires collaboration among community and health care agencies, families, and schools.” 
It involves institutions and neighborhoods working together to help meet basic needs. 

It is a promise unfulfilled in this country at this time, but it is a worthy goal to pursue for all our children.

This is the road to readiness. 

Kelly Choi

Local Leaders
2013-2014 Santa Barbara County Teacher of the Year

Social Skills

Radio Commentary

The skills required in a classroom are many and varied. 

Children need to know how to take turns, make compromises, approach unfamiliar children, obey those in authority, and be generally nice to others. 

Only then are they are socially ready to learn. But no one is born with these skills. They come from repeated interactions with other children at an early age. 

Keep in mind that not all the interactions must be positive and pleasant. Children need to understand that others can be unfair and unkind, but that they should not act that way in return.

If young children are never exposed to adversity, they will be much less prepared to deal with it when it arises in situations both inside and outside the classroom. 

We like to protect our children from unpleasantness, but at some point they must be able to deal with life’s adversities as well.

So let your children interact with others, and don’t be too quick to intervene in the normal squabbles that can arise. 

As long as all seems within normal bounds, let them work it out, and learn valuable lessons in the process.

Car safety tips

Radio Commentary

More parents are traveling with ever-younger children in tow these days. When it comes to travel safety, there are two practices that could save a young life.

First, when traveling in a car, always secure an infant in a car seat in the back seat.

The rear of a car is a far safer place in the event of an accident. Above all, never use an infant seat in the front of a car that has a passenger-side air bag. 

If the bag deploys, it can seriously hurt the infant by striking the back of the safety seat and causing injury.

In a case where an older car only has lap belts in the rear, or shoulder straps that cross over the neck or face of a toddler, it is still important to use a safety belt.

In fact, any belt is better than no belt. Use a booster seat for a young child who has outgrown an infant seat. This will raise the child so that the shoulder strap crosses the chest, not the neck.
If the rear seat has no shoulder straps, buy a booster seat with a harness or a shield. These devices have saved young lives.
Of course, preventive and defensive driving is always the best bet — and drivers should take special precautions when traveling with young passengers.
But sometimes unforeseeable circumstances occur, or other drivers are not exercising the same care as you are.  

At those times, it is far better to be prepared and to make sure a child is adequately protected.

Work ethic

Radio Commentary

        Author and child advocate Marian Wright Edelman wrote a book for her children, “The Measure of our Success,” that outlines 25 lessons for life. 
In it, she states: “Don’t be afraid of hard work or of teaching your children to work. Work is dignity and caring, and the foundation for a life with meaning.”
She writes that far too many children — of privilege, of the middle class, and of the poor — are growing up without a strong work ethic, and too many are growing up without work at all. 

It once was a given that children would work, sometimes after school, sometimes during weekends, always during the summer. 

Though the goal was to earn money, working was also a way to instill the values of the work ethic, providing meaningful use of a young person’s time. 

Edelman said too many people today are obsessed with work for the sole purpose of “ensuring their ability to engage in limitless consumption.”
She also says: “An important reason much of my generation stayed out of trouble is that we had to help out at home and in the community, and did not have time—or energy—to get into trouble.”
This is not the case with many of our children today. Leisure pursuits are highly valued by young and old alike. 

Recreation, sports, and entertainment have filled the space once reserved for employment. And many of the values learned in the workplace are finding no method for delivery in a society obsessed with fun and pleasure.

There is dignity in work, and it’s never too early to learn that lesson. We short-change our children if we imply that fulfillment can be gained only from activities that are fun. 

Local schools are jewels of state's community colleges

Newspaper Column
May 22, 2013

By Bill Cirone, Santa Barbara County Superintendent of Schools

As members of the Class of 2013 prepare for their high school graduation ceremonies across California, hundreds of thousands of them are also preparing to enroll in one of the state’s 112 community colleges.

Local students don’t have to look far to find two great choices — Santa Barbara City College and Allan Hancock College. Both have long been jewels of the state system, and they recently received overwhelming confirmation of their lofty status. 

City College was named one of two top community colleges in the country by the Aspen Institute, which cited SBCC’s outstanding achievement in student learning outcomes, degree completion, labor-market success (students securing good jobs after college), and facilitating the success of minority and low-income students.

Hancock is regularly ranked as one of the five best community colleges in California and one of the top 120 in the nation. This spring, it got a huge vote of confidence when it received the largest gift in its history — nearly $12 million — in a bequest from the late Patricia J. Boyd, a former faculty member.

These high-profile affirmations are important, and well deserved. The public may be tempted to take this excellence for granted — but it doesn’t come easily. Faculty members and administrators work every day to serve their students and the larger public, and students know it. Nearly 21,000 of them enrolled at Hancock last year, and nearly 27,000 at City College. They may be planning to get an associate’s degree in one of the many specialties the two colleges offer, transfer later to a four-year college or university, upgrade their professional skills, or retrain themselves in mid-life for another career. Perhaps they’re studying purely for personal enrichment.

Students of all ages and life experiences find a wide range of degree and certificate programs, outstanding faculty, impressive facilities, and great support services. Both schools can boast of their students’ career successes and excellent acceptance rates to four-year universities, and they can point to alumni who have achieved national and international success.

Two former Hancock students, for example, were prominent at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony — best-actress nominee Jessica Chastain and Oscar winner Mark Andrews. Oscar winners Kathy Bates and Robin Williams and Tony award-winner Boyd Gaines are also alumni.

Other examples of successful Hancock alumni include the late Admiral Owen Siler, international business executive Michael Henry, retired Major League pitcher Bryn Smith, the late artist Milford Zornes, retired NBA player Mike Bratz, and NFL coach Gunther Cunningham.

On its roster of famous graduates, City College can list two winners of the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius grants” — Dr. Angela Belcher, now an MIT professor and an authority in nanotechnology, and Dr. Yoky Matsuoka, a technology executive and an authority in neurorobotics — as well as World Series-winning pitcher Jesse Orosco and operatic tenor Eduardo Villa.

With more than 2.4 million students, the California Community Colleges are the largest system of higher education in the United States. They educate 80 percent of our state’s firefighters, law enforcement personnel, and emergency medical technicians, and 70 percent of our nurses. 

Santa Barbara County’s two community colleges haven’t achieved this excellence alone. They rely on community partners — businesses, individuals, and nonprofit agencies — for raising money, providing expertise, and giving advice on how to shape programs that will make their graduates’ skills relevant in the marketplace.

This level of excellence is a further testament to the amount and importance of community support received by local schools. Congratulations to all the administrators, teachers, support staff, students, and community members who make SBCC and Allan Hancock two crown jewels in our national community college system.

Summer tips

Radio Commentary

During the summer and year-round, it’s good to bolster the three R’s for your children. To start, have your children keep a diary of their activities. 

Also take time every day for the whole family to read. Even 10 or 15 minutes is fine. Have your children follow a favorite newspaper comic strip. 
It’s also fun to have them write letters or send postcards to relatives and friends. 
For math reinforcement, they can review cash register receipts, checking for accuracy when you’re unloading groceries. 
You can also teach youngsters to compute gas mileage. If you hold a yard sale, allow them to make change.
You can also help children get organized. Have them start a collection. It could be rocks, stamps, baseball cards, bottle caps, labels, marbles, leaves, or bugs.
Have the children arrange them in some orderly fashion by categories, by color, or alphabetically. They could even keep a written log to go along with the collection.
You can also ask youngsters to organize photos in an album by date or activity. 
Or, they can save newspaper or magazine photos of favorite athletes or heroes to create a scrapbook. These ideas can add to summer fun while bolstering the 3 R’s.

Pool safety

Radio Commentary

Swimming pools are a great place for children to have fun and get exercise. But they can also pose some dangers.

The American National Red Cross has important safety tips for supervising children anytime they are at a pool or pond:

Never let a child swim alone. Constant supervision is a must.

Never leave a child unattended in the pool area — even for the length of time it takes to answer a telephone.

Pool owners should make sure there is fencing around the pool, with a locked gate.

Deep and shallow sections of the pool should be clearly marked and separated with a line if weak swimmers or non-swimmers use the pool.

Anyone supervising children near water should know simple reaching techniques for rescues.

These can include extending a towel, shirt, branch, or pole to the swimmer, or throwing a life preserver or other buoyant object.  

It is also important to know how to administer CPR.

With water safety always in mind, everyone can have fun at the pool this summer.

Beating the heat

Radio Commentary

In the excitement of a good pickup basketball game or even a leisurely game of tag, children might not notice the temperature rising.

But as the day progresses, their bodies react to the heat, and if children aren’t careful, they could come down with heat cramps, heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

The body’s natural control mechanisms normally adjust to the heat. But those systems could fail if exposed to high temperatures for prolonged periods.

Here are some tips for beating the heat and staying cool:

•     Limit most exercise or at least the most strenuous physical activity to the coolest part of the day —early morning or late afternoon.

•     Have children wear loose clothing that's light in weight and color. Choose clothing that draws perspiration away from the skin to keep the body cooler — cotton T-shirts or shorts, for example.

•     Make sure children drink plenty of water – don’t wait until they say they’re thirsty to take a drink. The thirst mechanism kicks in only after a body is too depleted. If children are exercising heavily in hot weather, aim for two to four glasses every hour.

•     Stay away from liquids that contain caffeine or lots of sugar — these actually cause the body to lose more fluid. Also, remember that a drink that is too cold might cause stomach cramps.

•     Make sure children periodically take a break in a shady area to cool down.

These are all smart, effective practices for beating the heat.

Beating the heat

Radio Commentary

In the excitement of a good pickup basketball game or even a leisurely game of tag, children might not notice the temperature rising. 

But as the day progresses, their bodies react to the heat, and if children aren’t careful, they could come down with heat cramps, heat exhaustion or heat stroke.

The body’s natural control mechanisms normally adjust to the heat. But those systems could fail if exposed to high temperatures for prolonged periods.

Here are some tips for beating the heat and staying cool:

• Limit most exercise or at least the most strenuous physical activity to the coolest part of the day —early morning or late afternoon.

• Have children wear loose clothing that's light in weight and color. Choose clothing that draws perspiration away from the skin to keep the body cooler — cotton T-shirts or shorts, for example. 

• Make sure children drink plenty of water – don’t wait until they say they’re thirsty to take a drink. The thirst mechanism kicks in only after a body is too depleted. If children are exercising heavily in hot weather, aim for two to four glasses every hour.

• Stay away from liquids that contain caffeine or lots of sugar — these actually cause the body to lose more fluid. Also, remember that a drink that is too cold might cause stomach cramps.

• Make sure children periodically take a break in a shady area to cool down.

These are all smart, effective practices for beating the heat.

Summer activities

Radio Commentary

Young students need activities that help them learn and stay sharp over the summer, and parents can choose from many simple ones for their children who are in kindergarten through the third grade.

            Sorting and stacking helps teach classification skills. Ask your child to match and stack dishes of similar sizes and shapes. 

            Also have children sort silverware — forks with forks, spoons with spoons. 

            This is like recognizing the shapes of letters and numbers.

            You can also use comic strips to help with writing. 

            Cut apart the segments of a strip and ask your child to arrange them in order. 

            Then ask your child to say the words of the characters out loud.

            It’s also good to encourage hypothesizing or guessing. 

            Use objects such as soap, a dry sock, a bottle of shampoo, a wet sponge. Ask which objects will float when dropped into water in a sink or bathtub.  Then drop the objects into the water one by one to see what happens.

This all helps make learning fun, and it keeps young minds active over the summer months.

Helping a cause

Radio Commentary

            It’s important for children to learn how to be good citizens, and one of the best teaching methods is for parents to model the right behavior.

            One good place to start is to find at least one cause or need in your community where you can volunteer your help.

             Let your children know why you think that area is important, and spell out for them how you are trying to help. Let your child join you if he or she wants.

             Most children will be eager to become involved — but don’t force it if they’re not.

             It’s important to let each child choose where and how to help, so they can take ownership in the progress that is made.

            Opportunities range from helping other young people or senior citizens, to helping animals, or tackling an environmental project.

It’s also good to find and share success stories with your children.

It’s easy for any one of us to become overwhelmed by the problems in the community or the world. But the truth is that individuals can and do make a difference.

Talk to your children about the importance of joining forces. Encourage them to involve their friends or classmates in tackling big projects such as a creek or playground cleanup.

All these activities help reinforce the actions of good citizens. They help plant the seeds that individuals make a difference, and that in a democratic society we all have a responsibility to do things “for the good of the order.”