Welcome to THE COMMUNITY-BASED EDUCATION MOVEMENT™

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The CBE Movement™ is an action-based global community effort that is focused on transforming classrooms, schools, and districts into community-centered learning environments that support students with using academic skills as tools to learn about and improve their communities. 

The goal of The CBE Movement™ is to use a collaborative model to transform classrooms and communities around the globe. The CBE Movement™ will accomplish this goal through:

• facilitating classroom, school, and district transformations
• training students, educators, administrators, community partners, and other stakeholders 
• conducting research
• online catalog of CBE projects, units, and lessons
• online database of instructional videos
• certifying CBE trainers and coaches
• implementing CBE courses at colleges and universities
• creating CBE schools
• on-going marketing and recruiting 

The CBE Movement™ currently consists of two organizations: the for-profit consulting organization, CBE Consulting, and the nonprofit organization, The Global Academy for Community-Based Education, Inc. 

CBE Consulting is an MWBE Certified NYCPS Vendor that provides instructional support to classrooms, schools, school districts, and enrichment programs. During the 2023-2024 school year, we provided services to Curtis High School and Staten Island Urban Center, resulting in approximately 450 students engaging in our signature curriculum, the Community Advocacy Project. The Community Advocacy Project allows students to use academic and 21st-century skills to explore issues that negatively impact their communities and take action toward change. During the 2022-2023 school year, we piloted community-based education projects at Curtis High School and Henry Hudson High School. 

The Global Academy for Community-Based Education, Inc. (GACBE) is a 501c3 corporation that is also focused on supporting educators, students, and community partners in collaborating to develop sustainable community-based education projects in schools. GACBE hosted its first annual CBE Community Advocacy Expo during the 2023- 2024 academic school year. The Expo provided an opportunity for over 100 students to share their Community Advocacy Projects and make calls to action to the community. 

CBE refers to a variety of instructional practices used to connect what is being taught in schools to students' communities. 

Benefits of CBE include:​
     ✓  Helping students understand academic content in a real world context
     ✓  Increasing students' excitement about learning
     ✓  Strengthening students' higher-order thinking skills

     ✓  Learning culturally relevant and responsive ways
     ✓  Developing students' 21st-Century and 3rd-Millennium Skills™
     ✓  Improving students' retention of academic knowledge 
     ✓  Expanding students' college and career-readiness 
     ✓  Fostering stronger relationships between schools and their communities
     ✓  Increasing the community’s investment in, understanding of, and support for the school

CBE is a viable solution to closing the opportunity gap that many marginalized students experience. CBE can be a culturally relevant and responsive approach to education that allows students to use 21st-century skills and standards-based skills to better understand and improve their communities. 

CBE answers the age old question, "what does this subject have to do with the real world?"!

Benefits of joining The Community-Based Education Movement™ include exclusive access to:

• Updates about Dr. Ife's current research 
• TCBEM™ blog
• Resources
• Instructional videos
• Opportunities to participate in CBE research
• Newsletter subscription
• Classroom  partner database 
• Community partner database 
• Opportunities to support The CBE Movement™ 
• CBE online community forum

Follow these simple steps to create a free account with TCBEM™

1. Go to https://cbemovement.com/m/create-account 
2. Enter your information in the form
3. Check your email and click the activation link

Once you activate your account, you are an official member of The CBE Movement™! 

The founder of The Community-Based Education Movement™, Dr. Ife, has had the opportunity to gain a very unique perspective on education. Over the past 25 years, she has been an educator at all levels, from the baby room to graduate school and has taught all core subjects (Math, English, Science, and Social Studies), as well as other courses. Dr. Ife is truly a lifelong learner as she has been a student 35 years out of the past 40.  

As an educator of students from around the world, Dr. Ife has witnessed the positive impact student-centered community-based education has had on students in comparison to traditional, teacher-centered, education. She was rated as a highly effective educator and helped many students (with and without special needs) perform well on standardized tests as a result of using these approaches. Dr. Ife was recognized as an American Education Hero by TIME Magazine and was selected to be a National Press Foundation panelist with the US Secretary of Education, Dr. Miguel Cardona. She was also interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and several other outlets because of her work in education. 

Raised under the Principles of Kwanzaa, Dr. Ife has always been a community-minded change agent. Although she was fortunate enough to have positive experiences with schooling, she saw that many of her school peers were demotivated by the traditional learning model, causing some to even drop out of school. Reflecting on these personal experiences, Dr. Ife knew that she had to bring engaging instructional activities into her classrooms by connecting what students were learning to their real lives. Some of these successful activities included community-based learning activities.

With these professional and personal experiences, Dr. Ife chose to conduct her doctoral research on the topic of community-based learning to bring awareness to this innovative, yet ancient, approach to teaching and learning. After completing, presenting, and defending her research, Dr. Ife started The Community-Based Education Movement™.

For more information about Dr. Ife, please visit ifedamon.com.

CBE refers to a variety of instructional practices used to connect what is being taught in schools to students' surrounding communities.  

Although community-based learning comes in vast forms, there are four general approaches: 

• Instructional connections. Activities connecting content to students’ surrounding communities occur within the school building. 
• Community integration. In addition to instructional connections, community resources are brought into the school to enhance learning. 
• Community participation. In addition to community integration, students go into the community to enhance learning. 
• Citizen action. In addition to community participation, the audience for, and potential beneficiaries of, students’ work include community organizations and the general public.

While TCEBM™ finds all approaches valuable, the ultimate goal is to support students in engaging in community participation and citizen action CBE activities. 

Reference:

Great School Partnerships (2014). Glossary of education reform. https://www.edglossary.org/community-based-learning/

All educators can use the  TCBEM™ model with instruction because it is a personalized model that considers each educator's needs and goals.  With TCBEM's training and support, school and community educators' will develop their abilities to:

• allow standards to be tools students use to learn about and improve their communities
• analyze standards 
• use design thinking best practices to create CBE units 
• design CBE projects
• strategize approaches to planning assessment and instruction
• develop students' 21st-century skillsets
• provide culturally responsive and sustaining education
• provide student-centered instruction
• connect academic subjects to the world outside of school

Everyone should join The CBE Movement because everyone can play a role in helping students further the development of their communities. Supporting TCBEM™ is supporting communities around the globe!

The children are the future and they are also underutilized resources. By investing in their development through CBE, students can strengthen our global community now while becoming better prepared for adulthood! 

By joining TCBEM™ you can help more children 

• develop global mindsets
• develop 21st-century and 3rd-millennium skillsets
• develop their communities
• become more engaged in the learning process
• receive student-centered & culturally responsive instruction
• enjoy learning
• be empowered
• know they can make a difference  in the world

Everyone can be a part of TCBEM™! 

In addition to school educators, other supporters can also be a part of The CBE Movement™. 

Students, parents, community partners and other stakeholders can:

• learn  about CBE
• bring awareness to  CBE
• provide resources to TCBEM™ 

Examples include

• students can provide insight into their needs and ideas for thriving in a global 3rd millennium
• parents and other community partners can share experiences with how they use standards as tools in their daily lives
• other stakeholders can provide financial, human, technical, and other resources

Follow these simple steps to create a free account with TCBEM™

1. Go to Join The CBE Movement 
2. Enter your information in the form
3. Check your email and click the activation link

Once you activate your account, you are an official member of The CBE Movement™! 

As a new and growing effort, The CBE Movement™ has many needs that must be met to achieve the goal of using a collaborative model to transform classrooms and communities around the globe. 

TCBEM™'s current needs include:

• human resources
• financial resources
• technological resources
• marketing resources
• professional resources