Posts Tagged ‘SDPTQ’

What does “rural” mean to you?

September 2nd, 2010

Have you ever asked a young adult, “What does ‘rural’ mean to you?”  Thanks to the GoTeach South Dakota program, I recently asked that question to a group of college students who have made the decision to teach in rural, high need schools in South Dakota.  To make the activity more interesting, I asked them to draw their thoughts on a map of South Dakota.  Their responses were very interesting.

What did they think?

The responses ranged from inventive to … interesting.  One respondent drew a lawn mower, suggesting that rural meant “slower traffic” and that it was ok to drive a lawn mower down the street because it wouldn’t be holding up traffic.  Another person drew a deer being shot by a stickman with a caption “Hello supper,” representing the opportunities of outdoor recreation offered by rural places.

There were some less flattering responses like, “I’m bored,” and “there’s no shopping.” Other responses were more positive including, rural community are made up of close-knit families and unique small towns. 

The most common response showed the cities of Sioux Falls and Rapid City being crossed out, representing that the entire state was rural except for these two communities. 

Overall, I thought it was great to see the diversity in their responses.  I see elements of each of them in the rural communities I have lived in. 

A few more thoughts

As I returned to work following the event, a quote that has hung on my office wall for the last 5-6 years caught my attention.  It originates from a study published by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation titled Perceptions of Rural America, and goes like this:

 This means that perceptions of rural America are centered on a series of dichotomies - rural life represents traditional American values, but is behind the times; rural life is more relaxed and slower than city life, but harder and more grueling; rural life is friendly, but intolerant of outsiders and difference; and rural life is richer in community life, but epitomized by individuals struggling independently to make ends meet. Rural America offers a particular quality of life including serenity and aesthetic surroundings, and yet it is plagued by lack of opportunities, including access to cultural activities.”  (source:  Perceptions of Rural America, W.H. Kellogg Foundation,  2002)

 

Dichotomies - both good and bad

I keep the phrase on my wall because it reminds me of the challenges of marketing and branding rural communities.  It reminds me that people react differently to phrases like “everyone knows each other in a small town.”  For some it conjures up images of safety and familiarity; for other, it suggests small towns are like Peyton Place.  The reality is that there’s a little of both in all rural communities. 

At the end of the session with the students, I offered two bits of advice:  (1) dig deeper into the stereotypes,  both positive and negative, that we hear about rural communities, and (2) reject the notion that all rural communities are the same.  I think that’s advice we can all benefit from. 

 

Note: The GoTeach South Dakota program is a federally funded Teacher Quality Partnership grant aimed at increasing student achievement and developing high quality teachers for high need areas. The program includes comprehensive education, training, support and professional development for teachers recruited to serve in qualifying school districts.

Photo Credit:  KTPUPP - Flickr

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Posted in Community Development, Rural, education | Comments (2)

Think “youth engagement” before offering scholarships

June 15th, 2010

I’ve been in Tacoma, WA this weekend for my niece’s high school graduation (Congratulations Melissa!).  While waiting for the family to wake from their evening slumber yesterday, I stumbled across an article written by Jeremy Beer for Philanthropy Daily describing the success of a rural Pennsylvania community at reducing the outmigration of young people by providing scholarships to a nearby college. 

According to a 2009 article in Inside Higher Education, the two scholarship funds Beer references were established in the coal mining community of Tamaqua, PA in order to “to inspire local students both to go on to college and to stay close to home.”

Programs like this are of interest to me for a couple reasons.  First, I’d love to see rural communities everywhere develop “people attraction” strategies.  To me, people attraction strategies are about making communities places that people want to live.  This process begins with young people currently living in the community and extends out from there to adults everywhere.

Second, I wonder how it applies to the South Dakota Partnership for Teacher Education project.  Can scholarships work as an incentive for new graduates to teach in rural and Native American school districts across South Dakota?

Beer calls on leaders to extend scholarship programs like that of Tamaqua.  He writes:

Needless to say, these kinds of efforts could be taken much further. What if a local foundation decided to help pay off local students’ college loans, if they were to return to their hometown areas after graduation? Such a program would have to be designed with care, in order to avoid creating disincentives for colleges to give financial aid or to keep tuition low (in other words, if it were to have the same effect as the ridiculous federal student-loan programs, then we’re better off without it). But this could be an especially attractive option for the brightest of local kids who amass considerable debt attending liberal arts schools.” (Source:  Jeremy Beer, “Nudge them Homeward,” Philanthropy Daily, June 9, 2010)

I like the idea of extending these scholarship programs, but I’d recommend the extension be made in the opposite direction with youth engagement activities that connect young people to their community in the years before being offered scholarships.  In other words, get kids involved at an earlier age in meaningful community projects. 

As Dr. David Ivan from the Michigan State University states in a presentation at the 2009 Michigan Rural Partners Conference: 

Successful communities realize that the first step in reversing the brain-drain in small communities is to create a positive childhood memory that may serve as a consideration in future location.”  (Source: Dave Ivan, “Can Small Towns be Cool,” a presentation at the 2009 Michigan Rural Partner Conference, slide 38)  

It’s not that I think extending scholarships to more people is a bad idea.  I simply believe that communities need to build an emotional connection with young people before offering scholarships in order for the scholarships to produce the best possible effect. 

There are undoubtedly other similar scholarship programs cropping up across Rural America.  It would be interesting to learn more about their success and failures.

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Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Economic Development, Gen Y, Rural | Comments (2)

Mistakes of a first-year Teacher

November 17th, 2009

I have a confession to make.  When I started my teaching career at Tripp High School in 1990, I had no idea what it meant to teach in a small rural school.  Having grown up in Hartford, SD, a small town just outside of Sioux Falls, I always thought of myself as a rural kid.  But in reality, my high school experience was closer to that of a suburban school than a rural school.  And more importantly, nothing in my college teacher preparation courses suggested that teaching in rural schools was any different than teaching in urban settings.

Case in point:  During my first year of teaching, I introduced a personal finance unit into my micro economics class.  Hoping to show my students how they could be “smart shoppers,” I demonstrated how they could save money by switching from buying individual cans of pop from the school’s pop machine to buying pop in bulk. And if they were really smart, I suggested, they would drive to Sioux Falls to buy at a discounter like Sam’s Club — because that’s where the real savings could be realized. 

If you’ve lived in a rural community, you recognize the stupidity of my example.  But for those who don’t, let me explain:

First, I did not factor in the cost of driving the 90 miles to Sioux Falls.  (Boy would my green friends today have a problem with this.)

Second, it did not consider the importance of patronizing a business in one’s community.  Our local grocery story displayed good community citizenship, while Sam’s Club didn’t know (or care) that Tripp, SD even existed. 

And finally, the model for saving money I shared didn’t factor in how the city council would need to ask residents to pay more in property taxes to make up for the declining sales tax revenues resulting from out-of-town purchasing.   

I’ve been thinking about examples like this a lot lately as I work on the South Dakota Partnership for Teacher Quality.  One of the roles the Rural Learning Center will play in the grant is to help first year teachers learn how to live and teach in rural communities.  In some ways, this will involve similar concepts offered by Kyle Ezell in Get Urban.  (see post for more info.)

Teaching and living in rural communities is different from teaching in urban communities. I learned that the hard way.  I wonder how many teacher education programs acknowledge these differences as they prepare teachers?  If they did, we might see young teachers become life-long rural educators.

Photo Credit:  FXR - Flickr

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Posted in Rural, education | Comments (2)

Rethink, Reinvent, ReImagine

October 28th, 2009

Yesterday, while talking to partner organizations in the South Dakota Partnership for Teacher Quality, I had opportunity to revisit the Rural Learning Center’s tag line “ReImagine Rural.”

I explained to the group that we feel “ReImagine Rural” captures the essence of what the RLC believes about the future of rural communities:  that we need to pioneer a new future;  that this new future needs to be built on transformation — not revitalization; and that this process for rebuilding starts with re-thinking every aspect of our existence.  As Albert Einstein deftly stated decades ago,

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

This in turn reminded me of an open letter Karl Stauber, president of the of the Danville Regional Foundation, recently wrote to President Obama, pleading with the president to find a place for rural communities alongside his vision for urban places.

In the letter titled “Rural Economies must Change or Die,”  Stauber noted a struggle between the defenders of an “Old Economy” and those seeking to bring the “New Economy” to rural communities.  He also emphasized the need for rural communities to seek transformation, stating:

Rural communities used to be able to re-invent their competitive advantage every 50 to 75 years.  Now they must do this every 10 to 15 years.

Re-think. Re-invent.  Re-Imagine.  It’s interesting to think about attaching “re” to a lot of the verbs we use in community development.  Can it be that rural communities need to “re- everything” in our effort to rebuild Rural America?

Note: Karl Stauber is the former president of the Northwest Area Foundation, which helped launch the efforts of the Rural Learning Center with a 10-year partnership the foundation formed with Miner County Community Revitalization.

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Posted in Community Development, Rural | Comments (0)