Narration notes that accompany the PowerPoint presentation entitled "History of Afterschool and the LIAS Learning Principles".

1.
History of Afterschool and the Learning in
Afterschool & Summer (LIAS) Learning Principles
Slide # Narration Notes
1 (Cover slide)
2 For more information…
3 Before we talk about the Learning Principles that can guide the quality of
afterschool and summer programs, let’s take a look at our own history.
4 Much of what I will share about the history of afterschool was inspired by a
small but very important book by Robert Halpern entitled Making Play Work. I
highly recommend this book which can be purchased on Amazon.
5 There was a time in our history when few children even went to school. Most
children stayed at home to help their families with the work that the family did
to maintain and survive. Our afterschool story starts before school and
afterschool. It starts with the period of industrialization in the late 1800’s. This
was a time when so many people moved from the fields, the crafts and light
manufacturing; from rural areas in America or from other countries to the cities
where factories were being built and new jobs were being created.
6 This was a time when children were vital to the survival of many families and
they contributed their labor by helping their family make ends meet. Prior to
industrialization, this meant working beside their family members, assisting in
their work and learning the necessary skills to assume greater responsibilities.
7 …but rather taking their own jobs, standing by their own machines, working the
small spaces in the mines that adults couldn’t reach, hawking newspapers and
other goods on the streets.
8 In the early 1900’s, as people recognized that the heavy use of child labor was
not in the interest of the children, families, or their communities, a movement
began, state by state, to child labor laws which moved young people out of
factories and mines.
9 During this same period, a growing number of states enacted laws that made
school attendance compulsory, resulting in a quickly expanding system for
public education. For the first time, attending school became the standard
expectation for many children.
1

2.
10 When school was out children emptied out on the streets. If children were not in
factories or schools in the afternoons, where would they go? Thus, with school
came the need for afterschool. This was the time that organizations stepped
forward and created afterschool programs to support young people and families
in the out‐of‐school hours.
11 During this period was the growth of the Progressive Movement, which
promoted the idea that children were more than just small adults and that the
phase of childhood is an important time of life. We saw many of our first
programs for youth in the settlement houses, such as those established by Jane
Adams.
12 During this time people promoted the importance of play– that was not just
unproductive foolishness to young people’s development. The idea of building
places especially for play was a new concept to many, but that is what began to
happen during this period.
13 A wide coalition of child‐saving reformers including social settlement house
workers, progressive educators,
and child psychologists urged municipal governments to construct playgrounds
where the city's youth could play under supervised and controlled conditions.
14 Art was deemed an important and worthwhile afterschool activity. (Above) this
is a familiar image of children around a table painting and coloring…
15 In this picture you see that finding dedicated space, which is such a problem for
afterschool practitioners, was also a problem back in the day…
16 It is assumed that the push to assisting kids with their studies by providing
homework help is new, but it is not.
17 We can see that afterschool was born in response to a new social need that was
fueled in part by labor laws, compulsory education and the need to provide
support for tens of thousands of new immigrant children. Afterschool continued
to respond to the issues of the day and that is a long‐running theme that
continue today. Here are some examples:
18 WWI: Filling in for loss of services in the schools due to budget cuts
In the 20’s, there was a concern of how to acculturate the new masses of
immigrant children
19 30’s and the Depression: the issue of the day was child hunger. Youth services
after school were seen a as way to ensure that young people received a square
meal at least once a day.
20 During WWII, many of the men went off to fight in the war. Women quickly
moved into the workforce and many afterschool programs provided the needed
childcare.
2

3.
21 Over the decades, the focus continued to be on disadvantaged children. In the
80’s and 90’s, funding streams for afterschool programs were defined by a
rolling list of deficits and a framing of “youth‐as a problem to be fixed” and
“youth services as problem‐busters” The issues of the day:: alcohol, drug and
tobacco prevention, early teen sexuality, pregnancy prevention, crime and gang
violence, and the more recently academic underachievement and school failure.
22 In looking over the first half century of afterschool, we see themes that are
similar to the ones we have today:
•An on‐going tension between school and community ‐ should afterschool be an
important counter‐point to the school experience?
•The on‐going pressure for afterschool to over‐promise in order to address the
issues of the day and the deficits of other institutions – a problem in light of the
fact that afterschool programs have always been under‐funded and
undervalued.
•The funding of afterschool not seen as the work of government, instead the
work of charities and private funding.
23 Other Themes:
•There is a reliance on a part‐time, low‐paid and volunteer workforce
•There are concerns about professionalization, standard methods and quality
•And this question of outcomes: what should afterschool be responsible to show
as outcomes?
While these things sound familiar to the issues of today, these were raised as
issues in the 20s and 30s.
24 In 1992, the Carnegie Corporation published a seminal document that made a
case that afterschool programs were a critical support for young people and
their families.
25 One of the major findings of this study was the examination of how young
people spend their time. It revealed that children have more discretionary time
than previously thought. Discretionary time actually exceeded the time that
children spend in school. Thus, discretionary time should no longer be seen as
“throw‐away time”.
3

4.
26 It is in fact an important developmental time–a time that poses potential
risks…This report introduced the research that revealed the spike in juveniles
being victims and perpetrators of crimes between 3 and 4pm in the afternoon. .
This is when we began to see law enforcement step forward as important
champions of afterschool programs.
27 Law enforcement leaders knew and gave strong testimony that they could not
arrest away crime by young people. Thus, high majority favored the provision of
more afterschool programs.
28 Nationally, there were a number of issues that came together to create the
“perfect storm” resulting in the large scale support of afterschool programs:
‐ A concern around rising crime and the safety of young people,
‐ Changing households where many were led by single parents; an increasing
percentage of women in the workforce; and the fact that many households had
parenting adult(s) that were working one or more jobs out of the house and
were not at home in the late afternoon
‐This was accompanied by the failure of the public schools to educate their
students, particularly those in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
29 This public consensus that afterschool was important for children and families
and worthy of public investment helped fuel the 21st Century Community
Learning Center initiative, one of the fastest growing social programs in this
country’s history.
This rapid growth was also seen in California, as voters passed Proposition 49,
which provided over a half a billion dollars for the development of thousands of
afterschool programs using state tax money.
30 Any thoughts or comments before we move on?
31 The afterschool movement addressed the issue of risk faced by young people
who had nowhere to go in the afternoons by greatly increasing their access to
afterschool programs. We believe that the Learning in Afterschool & Summer
learning principles promote the learning opportunities in the afterschool hours.
These principles suggest that learning should be active, collaborative, and
meaningful…
32 …Support the mastery and expand the horizons of participants.
33 Once again, here are the keywords representing the LIAS learning principles.
Now let’s dig down and unpack what these words mean.
4

5.
34 Please gather in groups of 5 (assign 1 of the 5 LIAS learning principles to each
group). Each group member does the following:
1. Read silently to yourself the text that describes one of the LIAS learning
principles that was assigned to your group.
2. Underline or circle what you think are the key words or concepts, especially
those that speak to you, and think of one program activity that promotes this
concept.
3. Within your group, take turns by each person identifying one word or concept
they underlined and why they thought it was important. If the person before
you talked about the word that you were going to discuss, see if you can choose
another word or concept that you underlined to discuss with the group.
4. Choose one person to represent your group. This person will report out to the
larger group the meaning of the learning principle and why it is important.
Large group discussion (optional):
Ask people to respond to the following questions:
•What is most the most important element of Learning in Afterschool for you?
•What is your program already doing?
•What are you taking away from this presentation?
35 (Pause)
36 Let’s take a few minutes to look at the question of intrinsic motivation and
concentration, and in what settings young people are motivated about their
learning and also concentrating at the same time.
Researcher, Reed Larson, conducted studies on these questions around the
world. He did this by giving young people pagers and asking them to journal the
answers to a couple questions regarding their motivation and concentration at
that very moment.
He was interested in what settings stimulated young people’s motivation and
concentration. His findings weren’t intended to serve as a critique – they just
reflected on what young people reported…
37 The first setting is in school: where we see a negative report of motivation and
minimal concentration. This is particularly reflected by the young man in the
back.
38 When young people are able to freely socialize with their friends, they report a
high level of motivation but minimal concentration.
39 When young people are involved in sports, we see an elevated level of both
motivation and concentration. We can assume this is mostly true of young
people who are actively participating which is why youth development experts
urge coaches to play all of their players.
5

6.
40 When young people are involved in art and hobbies, they attain their highest
level of motivation and concentration. One only has to look at the face of this
young man to validate these findings. He is involved in a bike repair group that
is part of his afterschool program.
41 Any thoughts or comments before we move on?
42 We urge you to get involved if you believe these principles are important to the
field of afterschool and summer programs and if you feel like these principles
should guide the future of afterschool and summer learning.
You can go to our website and:
›Follow the Blog
›Access tools, research, video
›Become a co‐signer to promote quality learning in afterschool
›Follow on Facebook & Twitter
6