2007 Latino Upstate Summit

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend the inaugural 2007 Latino Upstate Summit in Buffalo, New York. I was able to attend workshops that focused on various issues affecting the Latino population in New York State. The workshops ranged from Bilingual education to Gang and Youth violence to the voting process.

Also at the event I was able to hear the keynote address of Dr. Manuel Rivera, Deputy Secretary of Education for New York State. Dr. Rivera made some interesting and great comments during his keynote. He focused on items that he is going to implement or have already implemented, items such as the Schools Contract for Excellence. He also focused on changing funding to schools so that institutions that have a higher need will receive the funding they are rightly due.

Another major theme for the summit was education. What other arena affects everything else in society, but education. Latino's like many other minorities are falling behind their Caucasian counterparts. Some of Dr. Rivera's comments focused on that along with some of the workshops.

The event was the first of it's kind created to unite the Latino communities across New York State. I must commend the board of directors and everyone responsible for creating the event. It must start somewhere and I think they are off to a great start. The environment was very professional and great for networking and forming connections.

I am looking forward to next year's Latino Summit which is scheduled to be located in Rochester, New York.

¡Viviendo el Sueño! (Living the Dream!)
Mr. Anibal Soler, Jr.
http://www.anibalsoler.com
http://anibalsoler.blogspot.com

Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage month begins on September 15, and is scheduled yearly
to last until October 15. It is the time of year that is set aside by
every school to focus or recognize the contributions of Hispanics or
Latinos in society.

In most schools and school districts very little is often said or done.
Latinos are the largest growing minority in America, and yet very little
emphasis is placed on the necessity to understand, learn and appreciate
the culture.

I look at schools as a reflection of what society places value or weight on. Let's look at the Social Studies curriculum. Their is no mention of the role of Latinos in America, and the only mention of African Americans outside of slavery and civil rights is minuscule.

Has anyone realized that this is why so many students struggle in school? Releavance! Today's generation sees no relevance to their world or their culture in education.

During this month I was privileged enough to go into Ms. Martinez's Spanish
class and present to the students. My presentation was based off of the
independent movie directed by Rosie Perez,Yo soy Boricua, pa'que tu lo sepas! (I am Puerto Rican , Just so you know!).

I was speaking to a group of Latino students not one outside of the
culture or ethnicity. We spoke about our role today, what they need to
do, and who they represent. We spoke of my past and how I came to where
I am right now, a Latino with an education and a successful career. The
students were very intrigued and enjoyed our conversation. I left the
class and discussion hoping to havereached at least on student who will begin to live the dream!

Hispanic Heritage remembrance needs to occur daily along with Black History
month and all the other cultures and ethnicity's that make up this
beautiful country called America.

Living the Dream!
Mr. Soler

Jasper Update

Good morning,

I wanted to share Jasper’s, (the young man who you all thoughtfully donated money to help towards his college) Philosophy of Education paper. His transition into college has gone extremely well and I speak to him regularly whenever he needs to vent or just share some of the college excitement.

Here is what he wrote in his first paper, a reminder of what life and education is really all about, enjoy!!

Jasper
Philosophy of Education

I am a 19 year old, who is hard working. I plan on traveling the world and hope to meet thousands of people. I am for the first time in my life satisfied with what and who I am. I value my life and especially the people I am around, where people are not handed anything in life. I can appreciate coming up hard and having to earn what I get out of life. It gives me a great sense of belonging when I see how much a person appreciates the time and effort I put into what I do.

My long term goal is to be a principal in a high school. I believe that much of education needs to be changed and that “we” (as those learning to be educators) are not doing a very good job preparing our youth for their future in the real world. I feel as a principal I will be able to mold my teachers to teach in a manner of my choosing though professional development and observation.

I want to start off as a physical education teacher and later head in the administrative field in education. I have accomplished a necessary short term goal by graduating from high school, last June. My current mission is to gain a degree in physical education and later get certified in administration to be a principal.

The interpersonal feeling that I receive when I see that I have positively influenced a child to do his or her best is one I experienced while working at the City of Rochester Recreation Center. I like the feeling that I help today’s youth make a better society tomorrow, plus in my high school, I have been close to all my physical education teachers and I have liked the way they connect with students. When I worked at the recreation centers, I loved the way I connected with the kids during play or when I could teach them how to play a game. Most of my physical education teachers have been a mentor and an inspiration in my life, I would love to do the same.

My “ultimate” career goal would be a principal at a high school where I can make my own rules. Much education today is monumentally ineffective. “All Too Often We Are Giving Young People Cut Flowers When We Should Be Teaching Them To Grow Their Own Plants”. ~ John Gardner. I believe hard work and dedication are needed in any aspect of education. I want to teach as many courses as I can. I want my teachers to excite and introduce students to a new perceptive of sporting careers. I believe if I can interest enough students to go on to college and take up careers in any of these fields or maybe be recognized by as many important people as they can. I also feel that in order to move into administration it will take many hours and a huge sacrifice in my personal life to move into the position I desire, like early in my career I want to try to reach every child. This may take many sleepless nights before I may realize that all children don’t want to be helped and that I maybe sacrificing many hours identifying those who need and want my help and those who don’t. This reminds me of the saying that “one can lead a horse to water but can not make it drink.”

I used to consider chasing my dream as a police officer, but some of society’s criminals start off as kids. However, if I get into education, I would want to fix what I believe in, which is, an injustice to kids and more importantly tomorrow’s society.

Living the Dream!
Mr. Anibal Soler, Jr.

Welcome Back!

The first week of school has come and gone. As you are all already aware I am in my second year as an Academy Director (Vice-Principal) at Charlotte High School in Rochester, New York. Our school last year was labeled as persistently dangerous due to the suspension and incident rates of 2005-06. During my first year our school principal and administrative team put many things in place and well, it paid off. We are now off the list that gave us a negative perception by our community members and students.

On our opening day we were welcomed with a visit from Interim Superintendent Dr. William Cala, who was going to visit all 60 schools during the first two days of school. Along with the Superintendent's visit came the media, in particular Channel 10 NBC News was there to report on us getting removed from the list.

I was glad to see them there to report on all of our hard work. All of the things that our teachers, students and administrators have been doing to make Charlotte High School a world class institution of learning.

Here is the video and article of that morning. Click Here




Now that we are off the list and back to a fresh start our focus still remains on continuing a a safe learning environment and improving our instructional offerings. With time I am confident that Charlotte High School will move up and be known as an elite high school in the Rochester area.

¡Viviendo el Sueño! (Living the Dream!)
Mr. Anibal Soler, Jr.
http://www.anibalsoler.com
http://anibalsoler.blogspot.com

The iPhone and K-12 Schools

It was about 3 weeks ago that I finally took the financial plunge to acquire an iPhone. Being the "digital junky" that I am it was only a matter of time before I got my hands on this innovative device. Let me see that the iPhone has definitely set the bar very high in terms of expectations for future phones.

Apple in my eyes has set the new benchmark for mobile phones.

Being an educator I can see a whole new world of benefits for schools, educators and district leaders. I can see this device take the place of the many "Laptop per child" initiatives. This device can do everything a laptop can do and would allow 24 hour communication between student and teacher or student and school. Obviously there are some legal concerns to consider but if done correctly it would allow for continuous learning to occur in and outside of school.

I am thinking of a student who doesn't have internet at home, he picks up his iPhone to log on to the internet to do some basic research online. That same student may text message his teacher with a question about the homework. I am thinking the school could send out messages to its students about snow days, or school sporting event schedules, etc. The school could even send out reminders for SAT registration and so on. There could be a hotline for students to text message to warn adults about potential problems. Teachers or the school could have a site with downloadable podcasts for the students on various topics along with videos that they could watch on their iPhones to support learning.

I would love to work with Apple and its education team on developing a model environment that could be reproduced in any educational setting. I would use my school as a potential learning environment. Just provide me with 25 iPhones, and 25 iMacs in a classroom and I will take it from there. One last thought the students could have a digital portfolio on their waist. They could show a mentor, parent or friend what they have been creating in class because of the total integration of iLife '08 with the iPhone.

I think you can see my point the possibilities are endless.

Steve Jobs, give me a call, shoot me an email, or text message me on my iPhone if you would like to expand your market. :)

Living the Dream!
Anibal Soler, Jr.
www.anibalsoler.com

Back to School!!

Tomorrow morning, it's back to work for thousands of teachers across New York State. The excitement is in the air!

I personally can't wait as I begin my second year as an Academy Director/ Vice-Principal at Charlotte High School. Coming into this school year with a years worth of experience speaks volumes. I am attacking things from whole new perspective. I am looking forward to improving our NYS ELA test results along with continuing to develop valuable connections with my students. I have some new teachers under my supervision along with many from last year. I think in ten months from now you will see a different end of the year grade for my self evaluation.

I want to wish all the educational leaders, teachers and students a successful and eventful school year. There is no other job out there where you will be able to affect the future of our world and obtain intrinsic rewards!

Good luck everyone and remember to Live the Dream!

¡Viviendo el Sueño! (Living the Dream!)
Mr. Anibal Soler, Jr.
http://www.anibalsoler.com
http://anibalsoler.blogspot.com