Who are “Breakaway Learners”?

Sometimes, happenstance or serendipity, or whatever you want to call it, just happens.

Subject line in my overly full email inbox reads:  A seemingly out of the blue email from a children’ book author based in US and living at UBC

The text:   Long story short, I am a visiting scholar at UBC through March 5th and passed your school many times.  I write children’s books — which I have read to thousands of children of all ages and stages (ideal range is 2nd — 5th grades)… Seeing and being in schools and working with children of all ages and stages is what I do — and having been a university president and senior advisor to the US Department of Education, I am ever of the view that the most important education is that which occurs early…  And, for the record, I attach a photo of myself and a short bio so you can see I am legit.  

My Response:   Is there a cost attached to this great offer?

The beginning of another beautiful relationship that started online!  Karen Gross did come to University Hill Elementary School to share her stories with our students.  She captivated both teachers and students alike.  She was aware of our outdoor school and environmental focus and arrived with her newest children’s book, Lady Lucy’s Dragon Quest, a story about droughts and saving land and crops with a strong female protagonist with a collaborative approach to problem solving.  Our Korean students were thrilled that Korean students were the illustrators, who are now in college and who continue to illustrate.

Karen Gross generously did several readings with the UHill students and met with aspiring writers during the lunch break.  We had a brief opportunity to talk but enough time for her to decide that I needed to read her new book, Breakaway Learners:  Strategies for Post Secondary Success with At-Risk Students.

Karen Gross is not your typical College president. She has a well developed understanding of the “curdled childhood” of students who have survived toxic stress and trauma, such as poverty and abuse, in their young lives, partially due to her own experiences as a child.  She has concrete ideas and suggestions to ensure better outcomes for vulnerable students, including admission into higher education and subsequent completion.  She has even coined a new word,  “lasticity” as a way to articulate the five building blocks required in order foster student success and hold institutions responsible for being responsive to all students:

1.  elasticity refers to the self preservation required for students experiences significant traumatic events or enduring trauma and continue to cope and move forward in their lives

2.  plasticity references the permanent change that occurs in the institution itself in response to required changes

3.  pivoting right references supporting students in their ability to make short and long term decisions that will bring abut the most favourable outcome

4.  reciprocity  that extends beyond student willingness to share ideas and commit to agreements with staff listening and responding, to institutions being responsive to the ideas and needs of their changing populations

5.  belief in self by teachers and institutions stepping away from a deficit model of education to one that builds on strengths

The books has a conversational tone, unabashed opinions and a distinctly American frame of reference. It is a must read for those considering short and long term goals for staff and institutions to re-invest themselves to nurture the success of vulnerable students through their many stages of the “education pipeline”.