Saturday, August 6, 2011

Harlem Gems - A Success Story

If you go to the Harlem Children’s Zone website http://www.hcz.org, you will discover that 100% of their pre-kindergartners were at grade level for the eighth consecutive year.  How many programs can claim this distinction?  The Harlem Gems program is successful because it is based on current research in child development and best practices.  It is not surprising; therefore, the curriculum is child-centered.  The program is based on the knowledge that children are naturally active learners regardless of ethnicity or socioeconomic status.  The role of the adult is to plan activities and facilitate learning based on the child’s interest. The Harlem Gems curriculum was designed in consultation from researchers, child development experts, and pediatricians.  Lead teachers have master’s degrees, assistant teachers have associate degrees, and every classroom has a Family Worker who looks at for the needs of parents.  Each day, the child uses language to choose and plan an activity, carriers out the plan, and solves problems that may arise.  The teacher helps the child review accomplishments and lessons learned.  Children must also spend 75 minutes per week using a software application called Lexia to develop phonemic awareness.  Teachers use the Brackin Basic Concept Scale to assess 258 concepts for school readiness and the Creative Curriculum Developmental Continuum Assessment System to measure 50 areas of social/emotional, language, and physical development.  The Harlem Gems program clearly uses research and best practices to help all children succeed.  What may not be clear to outsiders is they also apply a lot of “love”.  I found a 2007 newsletter on the HCZ website, “Harlem Children’s Zone, A look Inside”, and I searched for how many times the word “love” was used.  “Love” was mentioned 19 times.     Harlem Gems program shows best practices, appling all resources necessary, and a lot of love go a long way to addressing the inequity that invariably exists in any society.
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4 comments:

  1. CharMichaAugust 7, 2011 at 7:27 AM

    Joy,
    I read this also. And it blew my mind! I thought this was phenomenal. I wonder if all the children that were reported to be at grade level start the program as infants and how many of their parents participated in the Baby College? It would be interesting to see how that compares.

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  2. Tonetta B MarionAugust 7, 2011 at 2:41 PM

    Joy, this curriculum seems ideal. To implement a curriculum that all children are sucessful is worth looking into. I wonder how other states would fair if they had a curriculum like the one explain in your post.

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  3. StephanieAugust 7, 2011 at 7:05 PM

    Joy,
    Thank you for this post. As attuned as I thought I was with Early Childhood happenings, I had not heard of the Harlem Children's Zone and the wonderful work they do until last year. I would like to visit New York in the near future and observe the work they are doing first hand. I'm sure there are other programs producing positive outcomes and being able to read the blogs helps identify them and peak our curiosity about them.

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  4. DeniceAugust 7, 2011 at 10:03 PM

    Joy, Thank you for your post. Every week I enjoy reading about Children's Zone. I really enjoy hearing about Children's Zone because I have never heard about them and like Stephanie said, I hope soon I will visit New York and that will be one of the first and many places I must visit. I love to see and here about people all over doing positive things for children.

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