Children's Curriculum, Bridgeport Parent Leadership Training Institute

CHILDREN'S PROGRAM
Children’ s Leadership Training Institute (CLTI)

The Children’s Leadership Training Institute (CLTI) is a parallel course to the Parent Leadership Training Institute. Following the profile of PLTI, it is organized into the two sections:

Phase I	Developing Community
Phase II	Democracy and civic skills

The template features a book or books to ground the evening’s session. Activities are developed using the multiple intelligences template.

The addition of CLTI provides an organic bridge for parents and children who would now share the course experience and be rooted in the belief that ideas belong to the community and are tools in hands of all of its members.

To develop a session, we use the PLTI theme. Each evening's activities need to reviewed to ensure that they:

Appeal to children 3 to 12.

Have literacy as a base.

We have a full-spectrum of activities that encompass the multiple intelligences.

CLTI was an idea that emerged at a PLTI graduation. It was there that the children’s pride in both their parents’ accomplishments and their own became visible. This challenged us to develop a parallel childcare component that includes parallel content. It is an organic bridge for parents and children who would now share the course experience.

CLTI uses literacy as a base and creates a full spectrum of activities that parallel the PLTI course and encompass the multiple intelligences.

Multiple intelligence is a new name for an old theory. During the millions of years of human history, cultures have been woven by it and members of each group respected for their unique intelligences.

Each community has niches and roles for the storyteller, the healer, the bean counter, the singer, the wise one, the food providers, diplomats, builders, poets and problem-solvers. This was a defining feature of culture ... where in some cases children were named for their special attributes and adults acquired formal titles or informal names that represented them.

This is what makes groups work ... what enriches them and strengthens them ... valuing the multiple dimensions and unique strengths of each members.

PLTI offers the opportunity for parents to become public advocates for children by scaffolding the learning process where the “integration of child development, leadership and democracy skills” supports this process. PLTI groups are small communities. Shared work and shared learning are its cornerstones. These communities include the children. It brings full circle the link between parent as teacher and parent as advocate and bonds all concentric circles within the community.

The curriculum

One approach would be to design an individualized education plan tailored to the profile of each child and have it be met with a setting where a specific specialist meets each specific goal. Another program could be developed with general goals to meet the average interest and skill levels of children.

A different approach would be to create a curriculum based on the multiplicity of skills and intelligences, a kaleidoscope of learning opportunities. This program would be accessible to all children by honoring the different ways children learn and by providing tools to develop curriculum using the parameters of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences outlined by Howard Gardner’s work. The specific intelligences are body-kinesthetic, musical, logical-mathematical, naturalist, spatial, linguistic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal.

Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences acts as a lens for understanding how children learn. Gardner defines an intelligence as “the biopsychological potential” of all humans. For children with special needs, it is a critical definition. Identifying areas of developmental strength and supporting a child’s abilities, while at the same time offering specialized and sound under girding for his or her areas of disabilities, defines holistic education.

For parents, the direction is clear. The question is: how do we implement what we know to be the simple truth…all children are different, they all learn differently, and they all need an accessible program and accessible programming. This is the goal of inclusion at PLTI.

Curriculum ideas are simply catalysts, ways to organize ideas so they are visible to the children. Within each session, the eight intelligences are represented through activities designed to surface their strengths and talents and enfold each child. We develop curriculum webs: thematic and integrated program work. It is flexible, stretchable, creative, innovative, reflective, emergent and cross-cultural: it is “live” curriculum emerging from both the teacher’s and children’s multiplicity of intelligences. The multiple intelligences theory offers a rich array of intelligences, one which looks much more like the layers and textures we need from each other to form a culture.

-- Sandra Malmquist, CLTI

Awards

Future Woman of Distinction/Girl Scouts
Louise Lisboa ‘05

Rotary Club Student of the Month
Monica Tedla ‘07

Work Opportunities

Dr. Weisman - Clerical
Madeline Gonzalez ‘04

Global Custom Printz- Secretary
Teyanna Wells ‘04

Higher Education

University of CT
Veronica Brassell ‘98

Capital Community College
Louise Lisboa ‘05

Housatonic Community College
Carmen C. Nieves ‘01

Norfolk State University
Felicia Powell ’98 Norfolk State - Honors

Graduating from Wright Tech.
Stephanie Nieves ‘01

Scholarships

First Tee of CT Scholarship
Louise Lisboa ‘05

Norfolk State Chemistry Scholarship
Near & Far Scholarship
Felicia Powell ’98

Community Service/Other

Habitat for Humanity
Cirell Gallimore, Jr. ‘07
Norman Vallardares ‘07
Urenna Vielot ‘07

Girl Scout Awards -Community Service
Christina McClendon ‘98

MAAFA Influence Theatrical Production
Zequanda Wright ‘00
Shameen Hanks ‘01
NaQuasha Jackson ‘04
Crystin Engram ‘07

Juneteenth Pageant
Bobbi Brown ‘00
Queen
Fred Brown ‘00
King
Jeremy Ortiz ‘01
Prince

White House Page
Washington, DC
Louise Lisboa ‘05

Leadership

Radio Broadcast –
WDJZ 1540
Bobbi Brown ‘00

Championship Basketball Team/Kolbe
Daniel Carmichael, Jr.

Football/Central
Jerry Upchurch ‘04

Cheerleader/Lacrosse-Notre Dame
NaQuasha Jackson ‘04

Tae kwon do
1st Degree/Black Belt
Monica Tedla ‘07
Vivek Tedla ‘07

Photographer of CLTI Inspirational Photo Journal
Vivek Tedla ‘07

SUCCESS Program Sacred Heart University
Daniel Carmichael, Jr.

2007 CLTI Scholarship Recipients

Louise Lisboa
Class of 04

Felicia Powell, (daughter of Margie Powell Class of 98)

History

An inclusive community mirrors the community-at-large, a group of people with differing abilities, specialist themselves, who, together, create the mosaic called community.

Exclusion or segregation is based on a hierarchy of culturally generated values: gender, ability, color, class. It became possible with the development of classes within cultures with enough power to implement it.

With system-based segregation, laws were then needed to dismantle it. In the 1960s and 1970s, civil rights laws were being proposed to challenge segregation of any kind.

In 1975, Public Law 94-142 guaranteed every child “the right to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment”

In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act provided individuals with disabilities the same freedoms as non-disabled Americans.

And in 1991, IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act pledged that "every child with a disability will have the opportunity to maximize his or her potential to live proud, productive, and prosperous lives in the mainstream of our society.”

While it still amazes us that laws needed to be passed to make this all happen, (and outrageous that cities, businesses and schools actually argue about their implementation), the laws are welcome tools in the ongoing struggle for equality.