Empowerment Starts Here

Book Proposal
By: Angela Dye, M.Ed.
(Publishing Pending)

Empowerment Starts Here: Seven Techniques to Social Change in Urban Classrooms


Description: This book is about an instructional framework for student empowerment and the small charter school that launched the model as a school-wide program.


Subject Matter: Instructional Methods for Student Empowerment.

Scope: The scope of this book covers an experimental approach to social change within urban communities by way of a seven distinct principles for student empowerment. Turning classroom methods (based on these seven principles into a school-wide model), Preparatory School for Global Leadership was the first school to take empowerment beyond the individual clssroom. For schools looking to increase the efficacy and achievement of at-risk learners, this book provides insight on how this mission can be successfully accomplished. Not only are instructional methodologies discussed, but stories are shared to help the reader develop the capacity (and an appreciation) to combat the psychological, social, and political challenges associated with real school reform.

Intended Purpose: The intention of the book is to inspire a movement for student empowerment, especially within disadvantaged urban communities and to add personal insight into the world’s discussion on school reform and urban education.

Anticipated Length: The length of the book is 9 chapters (plus a prologue and an epilogue), equating to roughly 270 pages.

Intended Audience: This book will speak to individuals who serve in a leadership capacity within the urban community. Whether they serve as a principal, teacher, parent, community leader, or politician, this book will provide a theoretical and a practical approach to empowering those who have held historical positions of powerlessness.


A Detailed Table of Contents

Prologue: A Childhood Vision
This first chapter is personal in nature in that it profiles my journey as an educator. By explaining my own experiences as an urban, at-risk youth to my successful work as an urban classroom teacher, the chapter describes the birth of a curriculum model (SBC) and a school (PSGL) that employed seven distinct principles of student empowerment.
34 Pages

Chapter 1: The Construct of Empowerment
This chapter presents empowerment as a philosophy as well as an instructional framework. In addition, this chapter describes the phenomenon of learned helplessness and how empowerment directly combats it. Finally, the seven principles and tenets of empowerment (profiled in chapters 2 through 7) are introduced.
34 Pages

Chapter 2: Project Based Learning and Empowerment
This chapter profiles the specific way SBC program connects urban, at-risk learners with project based learning. While most students suffering from learned helplessness are not able to work independently, PSGL’s use of this curriculum truly built autonomy as well as global awareness among its students.
22 Pages

Chapter 3: Service Learning and Empowerment
This chapter examines SBC’s approach to service learning as a way to empower students. In it, the unique way power was shared and transferred to students is discussed. In addition, a rational is provided in how this new approach to student relations (via student power) can serve as leverage to engage typically disenfranchised students into the learning process.
30 Pages

Chapter 4: The Mission and Additional Programming
Chapter 4 serves as a transitional chapter between the central aspects of the SBC program (the project based learning program and the service learning program). In this chapter, the need for curricular supports is championed in order to enhance school-wide learning.
6 Pages

Chapter 5: Direct Instruction and Empowerment
This chapter looks at how the SBC program builds basic skills as a foundational aspect of empowerment. This chapter outlines specific techniques used to teach student mastery and retention within core subjects such as reading, writing, and math.
22 Pages

Chapter 6: Assessments and Empowerment
This chapter digests how the SBC empowerment program measures growth and looks at how the program deals with district testing both as a mandate and as a resource. In this chapter, I explore the empowerment of testing and the empowerment of growth that cannot be measured by tests.
22 Pages

Chapter 7: Accountability and Empowerment
This chapter looks at the role of student accountability as it relates to their achievement and their empowerment. While behavior management is discussed, chapter eight makes a case for student accountability that extends beyond management. In it, there are specific methods of the SBC empowerment program that deal with student relations that centers on student self-awareness and student ownership of their choices and outcomes.
34 Pages

Chapter 8: The Results of Empowerment
This chapter examines the results of empowerment as it relates to the scholarship, citizenship and personal ownership of students. In this chapter, quantitative data and qualitative experiences are presented that proves the impact that empowerment can have on student achievement.
20 Pages

Chapter 9: The Politics of Empowerment
This chapter presents the behind the scenes work with empowerment. While most of the chapters deal with the principles and methodologies of empowerment, chapter 9 looks at the paradigms and social constructs of public education and social change (as it relates to empowerment).
38 Pages

Epilogue: Falling Forward
I have ended the book with a poem, “Falling Forward,” that I wrote in 2005 and a description of my work since I have closed the school. Through this section, I want my readers to understand my continued commitment for empowerment. Through strides and set back, I believe it is my personal assignment to promote empowerment as a mission for social change.
10 Pages (estimate)