TEDxBuffalo - Stacey Watson - Rebooting Education in Our Urban Core

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G4CgNNdlHo

DROP-IN NATION is based in Buffalo New York and is nearly a decade old.  

It uses Holistic Education Curriculum  designed for Drop-out Recovery.

7,000 students drop-out everyday in the USA.

73% students attending DROP-IN NATION go on to College, job training or employment.

The major informers of DROP-IN NATION are:

Holistic Education:  Our children are people

Circular Reasoning:  Our children are complex

W.E.B. DuBois:  Theory of Double Consiousness

Jean Baudrillard: Theory of Cultural Industrialization

Relevance

Flexibility

Focus on Reading and Thinking

Love - without this, nothing else matters

It's almost 20 minutes long.  Check out 12:30 and Euro-centric and Circular Reasoning.  The idea that they survive and someone loves them is what everything else is based on.  There are even Yoga classes!

 

New Health Reference Sites

http://www.myhealthreference.com/

Answers to your health questions ... a Telus sponsored website addressing everything from diabetes to mental health to bone and joint.  I'm curious, from your expertise area, how you feel about the accuracy of the information and what you think about it being sponsored by a corporation?

BC also has the:

--> #8-1-1 HealthLink line http://www.healthlinkbc.ca/contact.stm 

--> #2-1-1 Community information line http://bc211.ca/index.html .  

Do you find people and families in your circles are using these supports?  Are these programs designed well?  Easy to use?

It's supports like this that I share with the Family Places (Family Resource Programs or FRP) where I work.  Many of our families are computer savvy and have access to the internet.  They feel confident navigating through a well designed website and are curious about new information.  When they arrive at Family Place, the parents are quick to share what they've learned with the other parents.  The families self-select if they use the information or not.  Overall, I am glad these three sources of information are readily available to the families of BC.