One of the most powerful ways to reduce the Latino high school dropout rate, increase college attendance and improve college graduation rates, is by targeting a root problem: the minimal or complete absence of academic study strategies for the vast majority of Latino youth. OjoOido.com addresses this failure to provide the Latino student population access to comprehensive and culturally relevant technical academic skills coaching and training.
An Approach”By Latinos, for Latinos”
As an immigrant from Mexico, I know the importance of competent academic coaching, healthy mentorship and sustained role-model guidance. I am bilingual, bi-cultural, and I attended a public high school (Pierce High School) in Arbuckle, a small agricultural community in Northern California. In spite of growing up in a humble migrant farm-worker family, I found a way to attend and succeed at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.
Why OjoOido.com?
After a fulfilling and diverse career in university administration, public school teaching, business consulting and practicing law, I made the decision to exclusively dedicate the rest of my life to improving the academic success of Latino youth–in recognition of and as a response to the enormously devastating impact of the Latino Education Gap. That is why I founded OjoOido.com PBC, a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation and OjoOido-Academics.com LLC
OjoOido.com is a Latino e-learning website that delivers a blended multimedia curriculum to develop core study habits and skills for Latino youth. Latino youth and parents receive sustained coaching and training on how to competently negotiate the public school system.
OjoOido’s Innovative Approach: Targeted, Relevant & Transformative
Proven strategies for Academic Success
One of the most powerful ways to reduce the Latino high school dropout rate, increase college attendance and improve college graduation rates, is by targeting a root problem: the minimal or complete absence of academic study strategies for the vast majority of Latino youth. OjoOido.com addresses this failure to provide the Latino student population access to comprehensive and culturally relevant technical academic skills coaching and training.
Latino youth are resourceful, talented and capable. Latino families value education and aspire to be productive and informed citizens. The first strategy of academic achievement is to recognize that you are responsible for your own learning. Most Latino students want to be part of a different and better world, but often they do not know how. Study strategies are rarely taught or for that matter discussed by teachers, especially at the middle school and high school level. Teachers must be content driven and normally expect students to devise their own approach to negotiating the academic workload or depend on parents for this direction.
OjoOido.com inculcates what it means to be an independent learner and the value this has in later life as a lifelong learner to insure that Latino youth achieve. OjoOido.com’s pragmatic and systematic study habits and skills pedagogy builds competent, confident, motivated and self-reliant students. From my own experience as a student, educator and lawyer, I believe that all students must first understand the role motivation plays, how good you are at setting goals, managing your time and reflecting, in order to obtain academic success because it is those activities that will reveal to the student how she or he currently stands with regard to independent learning. It is in understanding the importance of these issues and implementing them which determines one’s attitude to work in middle school, high school, college and later.
Latino Role Models
By the teaching and implementation of study strategies, OjoOido.com trains Latino students to succeed far beyond what they currently perceive is possible and provides Latino parents the support needed to proactively prepare their children to become engaged and competitive public school students.
The OjoOido.com Latino Role Models and I know first hand what is required for Latino youth to become competent public school students. Our background mirrors that of an overwhelmingly high percentage of Latino students in the United States. We know the obstacles that our Latino youth face in successfully negotiating the public school system.
Our backgrounds demonstrate that we are persistent, driven and passionately believe that all students can – and will succeed – with the opportunity to learn and grow; regardless of cultural or socio-economic obstacles that may stand in their way. Throughout our lives we have demonstrated a record of problem solving, creating, developing and executing tactical and strategic planning to successfully achieve our goals. Our life-long passionate interest in and involvement in educational programs designed to strengthen under-resourced Latino students’ ability to succeed in challenging academic environments has lead us to create OjoOido.com; a sustainable, replicable and scalable Latino e-learning solution–by Latinos, for Latinos.
In the Interest of Our Latino Youth and Nation
With science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) occupations slated to become all the more important to our growth as a nation, it is in the national interest to break down the barriers for Latinos. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the United States, employment in STEM occupations is projected to grow nearly two times faster than the average for all occupations in the next few years. It is estimated that tech companies will have in the range of 430,000 STEM job openings. Developing the core academic habits and skills that are required to successfully develop the next generation of Latino talent for STEM positions is a prerequisite in creating a reliable and skilled workforce to fill those positions.
To effectively encourage greater participation and access in STEM it is imperative that all Latino students should at least understand basic critical thinking and strategic planning. A current absence of focused instruction in critical thinking and strategic planning is the real crux of the problem Latino students are having. A significantly larger number of Latino students will be attracted to the STEM occupations if they are introduced to an approach to problem solving that can empower them across all fields of study. It is an understatement that few people realize the powerful role that critical thinking and strategic planning play in their lives. In order to have a measurable impact in recruiting and adequately preparing Latino students to succeed in the STEM occupations it is not only important to inspire passion for STEM occupations, it is also important that Latino students see the necessity of critical thinking and strategic planning and gain significant command of it because failure to do so will inevitably have a negative effect on their school success.
In the STEM context, it’s critically important for Latino students to make time to reflect before making decisions required to successfully negotiate a STEM education and career. Critical thinkers and strategic planners take the time to reflect and consider relationships between ideas, plans, and people that others fail to see.
Latino students need to be exposed to critical thinking tools to take charge of their learning and their life choices. Latino students’ cultural perspectives need a “reboot” as it pertains to education generally and STEM specifically. Latino students view people in the STEM field differently than Anglos. Therefore, a major challenge with combating existing stereotypes within the Latino community regarding STEM occupations is to put forth more Latino role models to change the current thinking. As all competent and seasoned educators know, both the affective and cognitive domains must be attended to. Whatever action taken is determined by the way a person is thinking. Whatever people feel, all emotions, are determined by thinking. Whatever people want, all desires, are determined by thinking. If thinking is unrealistic, it will lead to many disappointments. If thinking is unduly pessimistic, it will close the door to many opportunities in which an individual should properly consider and pursue.
Generally speaking, most people are their own worst enemy in achieving their potential when they do not expand their thinking to include insights from multiple perspectives. Myopic thinking is a continual source of problems, preventing people from recognizing opportunities, preventing them from making sure that their activities are relevant to their goals and purposes, developing relationships, and leading them to frustrating and unfulfilling experiences. Latino students need to be introduced to intellectual “tools” that critical thinkers use to improve their thinking ability. Educators must do a much better job of communicating to Latino students the applicability of the most important qualities of a critical thinker. For example, critical thinkers do not take their thinking for granted, they think about their thinking. In other words, critical thinkers notice their thinking, reflect on their thinking and then act upon their thinking. Critical thinkers are highly purposeful in that their actions are not reactive but rather reflective. In short, critical thinkers create clear goals and clear priorities before taking action and then continually measure their actions to insure that their actions are in alignment with their goals; and critical thinkers continually work at accurately and precisely expressing or communicating their thinking.
Additionally, Latino students must be taught that critical thinkers are strategic planners. A fundamental understanding of strategic planning is critical to successfully negotiating the educational ladder. Teaching Latino students that they have the capability and opportunity to think strategically doesn’t mean making decisions that affect changing life circumstances beyond their control. It requires only that you analyze small and large decisions in the context of your broader goals. It is critical that educators provide and nurture the unique insight that everyone, including Latinos, have an opportunity to think strategically.
Strategically thinking necessitates the ability and willingness to make choices. As the famous Renaissance group research has demonstrated, “failure to focus on a few key strategies contributes to the failure to execute strategy.” Making choices, both about what you will do and what you won’t do, requires the courage to take action and confidence to abandon an alternative. The current student development pedagogy in our Latino serving public middle schools and high schools, all too pervasively, fail in inculcating the habit or practice of routine self-evaluation of one’s own thinking to determine its strengths and weaknesses. If Latino students learn that the disciplined practice of evaluating one’s thinking is a habit one must (and can consciously) learn then they will be empowered to be more deliberate in their thoughts and actions.
To effectively encourage and prepare greater Latino student participation and access in the STEM field it is imperative that Latino students be equipped with at least a basic understanding of critical thinking and strategic planning. Taking command of one’s thinking enables one to reason well through the problems and issues one faces in the classroom and in our personal lives. Teaching this to our Latino students at an early age will help them succeed in school and their chosen careers.
Conclusion: How it works!
The hallmark of OjoOido’s online academic coaching program, “For Latinos, By Latinos” is that OjoOido Role Models know first hand what is required for Latino youth to become competent public school students. Their backgrounds mirror that of an overwhelmingly high percentage of Latino students in the United States. Out of their shared life experiences, they know the obstacles and barriers that our Latino youth face in successfully negotiating the public school system; therefore, have chosen to subscribe to the philosophy that, as a Latino student, it’s critical that you, yourself, bring the meaning to your education. The meaning of “success or achievement” in high school, college, career, or for that matter in life is whatever you ascribe it to be.
OjoOido.com invokes our Latino Role Model’s collective practical wisdom, expertise, creativity and impassioned zeal to create a blended multimedia student development pedagogy that Latino-serving institutions and its administrators, teachers, parents and, most importantly, its students can utilize to improve educational attainment.
OjoOido’s Tripartite Standard of Excellence Required of its Role Models:
1. The OjoOido Role Model has demonstrated ethical conduct that serves as a template for exercising adult responsibilities.
2. The OjoOido Role Model serves as a symbol of achievement.
3. The OjoOido Role Model must be an individual that can provide educational services.
Through this signature approach Latino students improve focus and clarity. The modeling of behavior and teaching practical time management, strategic planning and problem-solving skills, the Latino student has academic success. OjoOido’s interactive and multimedia platform delivers an effective decision-making training program that empowers students to ascribe meaning to their education and are able to identify the barriers and obstacles that all too often prevent them from completing their education and reaching their defined goals.
OjoOido’s 5 Steps for Academic Success:
1. OjoOido directly, quickly and adequately prepares Latino students by providing a proven decision-making methodology that enables any student to decide for themselves what they want out of high school, college and/or trade school and then map out a plan to make it happen.
2. OjoOido trains Latino students to identify obstacles, create contingency plans, connect with a variety of educational resources and align their short-term actions to their long-term goals.
3. OjoOido teaches Latino students the practical skills needed to balance work, personal commitments and financial challenges with their demanding academic load.
4. OjoOido inculcates the Critical Thinking ethos: the first and most important strategy of academic achievement is to recognize that you are responsible for your own learning. By taking this responsibility the student develops the self-confidence needed to succeed in school.
5. OjoOido provides a comprehensive step-by-step training to Latino students on HOW to become responsible and manage their time and efforts for creating their own future.
OjoOido’s “By Latinos, For Latinos” is a tag line that represents its approach: collectively applying and providing hard earned practical wisdom, expertise, creativity and an impassioned zeal to create a blended multimedia student development pedagogy that Latino serving institutions and its administrators, teachers, parents and most importantly, its students can utilize to improve educational attainment–all the things that contribute to America’s greatness.
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