High-Powered Cast Gets Behind ​“Dream City”

Besides the catchy title, what does a "Dream Director" do that a guidance counselor shouldn't be doing already?

Look, all this is nice and positive so what is not to like.

Here is what Mayor DeStefano needs to do as the leader of NHPS now that he is a lame duck mayor.

1) Cut 90% of the central administration jobs. A huge side benefit will much less group-think and attendant shenanigans.
2) Move out of Gateway Center and have the remaining newer leaner district admins take up offices in the various schools.
3)Go mobile via computers, smartphones, and tablets--it is easy today to utilize programs such as Skype to have virtual meetings.
4) Reduce the principal and ass't principal force by at least one-half to start with the goal to eliminate all such positions to be replaced with volunteer teacher boards--this will eliminate having so-called "leaders" making 3x the average teacher salary and would go a long way to eliminating the disparity in salary problem (and there is a huge problem with incentives in this management structure)
5) Hire cost effective business managers to run the non-professional staff functions.

4) Design fund allocation around the classroom. This is huge and will be seismic shift for the good of our kids.

5) This last one is pure fantasy but here goes--go on Channel 8 and tell Malloy and Obama to take their $$$ and let us folks here take care of our own. (and I do like Obama so don't get mad)
Oh, one last thing--I am available for Reggie Mayo's job although I don't dress nearly as well.

Robyn,

Great question! We see the Dream Director and Guidance Counselor as very distinct. The Dream Director is focused on three things, above all:

• First, the Dream Director builds a coalition of students (the Future Fellows) to launch a school-wide campaign that leverages the passions of the students, and one singular dream for the school, to transform it in one way powerful, measurable over the year. For example, the Dream Director at New Haven Academy, Laura, has sparked a student-led campaign to turnaround the conversation in the school (AirTime) by featuring positive conversation (so many studies show the connection between conversation and performance); at HSC, Christian is working to turn the school into a High School FOR the Community by sparking the students to turn the building into a living student-created art gallery; and at Wilbur Cross, Frank Brady is launching a school-wide M.A.C. (Make a Change) campaign, created by the students for the students—to enable each to become a changemaker. Each campaign involves teachers, the principal, and community partners as they begin to take off.
  
  
• Second, the Dream Director goes out into the community and recruits volunteer coaches to partner with students based on their passions and challenge them to build entrepreneurial projects — from starting non-profits to putting on plays to launching an student-suicide prevention initiative; there are hundreds of examples — that lights their fire; makes a difference for New Haven and the school; brings together a team of fellow students; and leaves them with leaps in self-efficacy, mastery and grit. We focus on a core group of Future Fellows, and our model is evolving so that next year, we will be able to directly touch most students at the school.
  
  
• Third, the Dream Director will be increasingly partnering with teachers and students to reinvent the way school occurs to students by everything from electrifying lunch and creating after-school opportunities to connect with the talented and passionate people in the community, and, overall, working to make the culture of the school one that nourishes the whole child. We want to see students and teachers to absolutely love to come to school — every single day.
  
  Dream Directors are also increasingly working to be alliance builders and community organizers, convening the many amazing organizations in the city to help enable the individual dreams of students and the collective dreams of a school and city.
  
  Andrew

I would rather my high school child has a full time guidance counselor, full time school nurse, full time security guard, enough books for each child to take home and teachers with some classroom management skills so the kids who want to learn can.

Heck,

Guidance counselors are more often than not, formulaic and unworldly. If the DD's are intended to shake up the hierarchy with a little bit of Merlin-esque invasiveness and cheerleader positivity then I'm all for it.

Melissa Bailey is cool. She always posts a picture of the food.

And student dreamers--- don't be co-opted by the establishment coming to you with trays of food and promises. We have to MAKE the POWER for ourselves . Then, we can effect the changes we want to make the kind of New Haven and the kind of world we want. Hold on to your ideals and to your knowledge of right and wrong!

Brutus2011 speaks truth.

Based on my limited interactions with The Future Project, it's a noble goal. It's about motivating and helping students make a positive impact in their community RIGHT NOW. It's true community involvement and extra curricular. That's what makes it different from guidance counselors

Mr. Mangino--
Thanks for the post-- and thanks for a great idea--looking forward to working with these dreamers--Tom

This is all fine and dandy....another 'great idea' full of 'what the kids want and not what adults deem best"(?)....kids singing and rapping, lots of food and politicians and non-profit saints (striking the same inspirational and sincere pose no less)........but can the kids read, write, think? Can they function and persevere when they get to college? Smells like another canned fad, forgotten once the next one comes along.

John,

Really excited by your question—definitely a big, important one to be asking, and exactly what inspired The Future Project in the first place, actually!

We worked backwards in designing The Future Project to ask how the students who attend schools with Dream Directors would learn not only how to get into college—but how to persevere, function, and flourish in college and way beyond. We use the "25-year rule" to see what we can do in high school that will make an impact a 1/4 century later.

To help figure that out, we've been consulting over the past two years the world's top experts and gathering the most empirically tested materials in enabling grit, resilience, perseverance, willpower, and intrinsicdemystifyn, as well as "growth mindset," the mindset that says every failure is a victory because you're learning something that can point the way to your future, a mindset that more and more long-term studies show the most successful people learned at an early age—and use always. A mindset without which even well-educated people will achieve little compared to their potential.

Also, on your point about reading/writing/thinking, that is why we focus on motivation—the elephant in the room. Where there is desire, there is learning—but ONLY where there is desire. We aim to connect school for students to their passions, so that they see the reason to read and write, and can apply their learning now—and thus learn not only how to think, but also how to create. We see these as key 21st Century skills.

As Melissa points out, it's an experiment—we don't know the answer but are out to find it. And I think you're asking exactly the right questions; we are working to do everything we can to find the answers that de-mystify motivation and true drive—and give students the skills and mindset to be resilient against all odds. We see this as central to the future of education—and it sounds as if you do too!

Andrew