It’s perplexing to me why we can’t let kids learn, and receive recognition for that learning, when young learners are away from places called school. When we ran out personalized learning lab school in the Houston Museum District, we told our young learners and their families that “Houston, Texas was our classroom!”
I read last week about a learning opportunity in Lodi, California, where winemakers are opening their vineyards to potential employees who just happen to be high school-aged kids. The 74 reports,
“The primary industry in Lodi, California, is agriculture. About 40 miles southwest of the capital city of Sacramento, this land flanking the Mokelumne River is blanketed in grapevines dating back to 1850. But in this grape-producing powerhouse, which produces 20% of all of California’s wine grapes, just 80 independent wineries stand. Farmers sell most of their crop to other winemakers in other regions, especially Napa County and its 475 wineries producing more than 1,000 different brands.”
“Over the past three decades the crop value has quadrupled in Lodi, and the number of independent wineries is edging up, in an effort to encourage wine tourism and local winemaking – and, in effect, creating a pathway for area students. The nonprofit group San Joaquin A+ partnered with the Lodi Unified School District, Delta College and the Lodi Winegrape Commission to design a technical education curriculum and internship pipeline to prepare students for careers in the winegrowing, winemaking and hospitality industries. The program, Growing Future, is now in its first year, and has been described as an innovative solution to the skills gap, a financially rewarding career path for many young people, and a much-needed economic boost for family farms.”
We could, and should, start learning organizations connected with all types of businesses, like the winemaking industry has in Lodi, California.
It’s that time of the year when schools start back in session. It’s also the time when all sorts of teaching aids appear to help young classroom leaders prepare themselves to do their jobs. One teaching aid that caught my attention is a book titled “Smart from the Start: 100 Tools for Teaching with Confidence.”
The book promises to help beginning teachers with perfecting the following points of concern: beginning of the year, classroom management, instructional planning, student engagement, assessment, and teacher well-being.
Maybe I should write a book. My book would be titled “A Better Path to Learning” and would focus on the following points of concern: how to build a personalized learning plan, how to resource learning in the world, how to build deep relationships between adult learning leaders and young learners, and how to involve families in a young person’s learning.
I read last week that the Texas Legislature decided not to include $2.3 billion in their final state budget for early childhood provider assistance. The Texas Tribune reported,
“This year, the Texas Legislature passed on a chance to step in and fund child care providers now staring at this looming economic cliff. A $2.3 billion House proposal for child care was left out of the final budget. Texas child care providers say they were counting on help from the state. The had hoped to use state money to help raise the average wage of staff and educators from $12 per hour to at least $15 per hour.”
“’When you’re a high quality center, you need to pay for high quality staff. And when there’s no funds to help with payroll. Even if they just helped with payroll,’ Tracy Hanson, a Texas child care center owner, said, before trailing off. ‘No one listened.’”
Evidently all of those conservative Texas legislators missed the Bible lesson that said, “You reap what you sow.”
Friday News Roundup tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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