My Last Day at KIPP: Aspire Academy

I can't believe today was my last day. The third week seemed to drag on forever, but now its over. My last day was just like any other. I observed Joyce teach a covering and surrounding lesson about area and perimeter. The students used small cubes to create a bumper car track. They had to determine how many rails were needed depending on the area and also on the shape of each figure. Eventhough the area was equal for two different shapes their perimeter may have been different. The students explored why this was true and concluded that some shapes were expanded and more sides were exposed creating a greater perimeter. There was another observer in the room today. She is a graduate student at Trinity University and was visiting KIPP to get some ideas for management. I told her she was in the right school and classroom. After block 1, I took the observer with me to Ms. Starr's class. After grading morning work and life work, they reviewed for tomorrow's life challenge by playing tic-tac-toe math. Each student had to work the problem on their own paper and then Ms. Starr would call on different students to answer the question to get that spot for their team. During lunch, I walked around with a group of girls to pick up trach around the school. I guess they get bored with the typical things to do at recess and so picking up trash seems like more fun. After lunch, I went in to help Travis teach block 3, 6th grade math because Joyce had a busy afternoon and was unable to do it. It went ok. The students were pretty wild and didn't understand the lesson very well. Its hard to use Joyce's lesson and teaching style because if you don't execute it correctly it could have a negative affect on learning. The teacher tries to guide the students' learning through their own exploring and participation, but understanding is lost in the process if the attempt to guide them fails. I have decided that I am very effective at helping students individually, but I need to work on the whole group learning process. At 3:00, I went to play scrabble with the 8th graders and I am improving. I scored 42 points on one turn! I was so excited. I am not the best scrabble player or the best speller (if you haven't noticed), so scrabble is good for me! Those 42 points were enough to win the game. What a great going away present! From 4-5, I peaked in the Karate room, stretched with the dance class, and said a lot of good-byes. I couldn't find the right words to say good-bye because it wasn't like I could say, "See next month!" or "Call me tomorrow", it was more like, "Have a great life, it was great to meet you." I will stay in touch with some of the people, but everyone else I don't know if I will ever see them again. I finally found Mark at the very end to say good-bye and thank him for the opportunity. He thanked me for coming and let me know that if the other two schools don't work out that I can return to Texas! So after 5 weeks, my first leg of the adventure is over and I had a great time. I have learned so much about KIPP and education in general. The teachers have been so friendly and have helped me feel right at home. I will miss everyone dearly, especially the kids.
~The weekend plan: My mom flys in tomorrow and we will drive to Phoenix on Saturday to stay with my brother and then get up Sunday morning to drive to San Diego. My mom's plane doesn't fly out until Wednesday so we will be enjoying each others company until then. I am so excited to see her and begin the next adventure. I hope you all have a great weekend!

One More Day!

Today was a great day! I bonded with Ms. Starr all day. I observed her teach her first block and then I taught the other two. The students were learning about area and how to find the area of a rectangle and a square, pretty basic. The students followed along with the notes as I wrote them on the overhead. They helped fill in the blanks and answer questions. All three classes today were well behaved and pleasant, no mental breakdowns today. At 1:45, we went outside to let the students play capture the flag for the town meeting because unlike Hastings weather, its 65 and sunny here. The day was wonderful and went fast.

Two Days To Go

Joyce came back today!!!! I am thrilled. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the opportunity to gain experience by taking on 6th grade for two days, but I was ready to give them back. I still have a lot to learn and I realized that the minute she walked into a silent block 1 class. WHAT!!?? Completely different kids. Some of which, come to find out, were sitting in the wrong seats when Joyce was gone. No wonder there were some management issues. Note to self, always have a seating chart for the sub. Math class consisted of going over morning work, grading life work, correcting quizzes, and reviewing for the life challenge tomorrow. They had review packets to work on with a partern. Ms. Starr was absent today and so Mrs. Mallory took over math class and the students had a writing assessment for non-fiction studies which worked out well. By mid-morning with 5th and 6th grade math unavailable to observe or teach, I had to brainstorm other ideas. I decided to go observe 8th grade writing, taught by Mr. Gowen. The moment I walked into the classroom, I was approached by Donna, who is actually in one of the pictures at the side. She handed me the lesson plan and lifework for the day. Since KIPP has so many visitors, there is a certain student in each class named the greeter. Their job is to greet visitors and inform them about class. It was a pleasant surprise and made me feel welcome. I can't tell you enough, how behaved these students seem. They spent the first 15 minutes going over morning work because Mr. Gowen thought that many students did a poor job and spent little time finishing it. The rest of class was spent drawing conclusions from two related sentences. The students got in groups to pair the two sentences that shared something in common and then draw a conclusion based on the information. After lunch I helped a 5th grade student write an essay on racism. Mrs. Mallory required no research on this essay and simply wanted to know the knowledge each student had on the topic. I helped guide and organize Christopher's thought. He had some great ideas and input that just needed to be combined to create a paragraph. In the end, he did a great job and I think he felt proud of himself. The rest of the afternoon was spent expanding my vocabulary through a game of scrabble. Kind of an uneventful day at KIPP, but then again, I kind of needed one to regain my strength!

The Countdown Begins 3 More Days

Wow, another crazy day filled with 6th graders. The day went similar to Friday in that the 1st block went the worst, the 2nd block went the best, and 3rd block was in the middle. Mrs. Hirsh thought that the 1st block went well and was complimenting me on my management skills. I thought it went absolutely terrible. I was all over the place trying to figure out the routine for the day and every time I would pause for a moment the students would start talking. I felt like I was making empty threats about losing P.E. time and marking their cards. The poor timing and disorganization drove me crazy. In 2nd block, the students were well behaved and stayed on task for the most part. I was in control of a productive classroom. 3rd block went well, no crazy management struggles. In the afternoon I graded spelling tests for Mrs. Quintanilla and then observed Ms. Starr pull out her hair with her last block. We agreed that the students who have wonderful personalities that would be a blast to have a school dance, are absolute pills in class. I truly enjoy all of my misbehaving students. They are great students who mean well but need to behave in class. Wow, can't believe how short this post turned out to be, but that just goes to show how exhausted I was! lol

Saturday School

I arrived at KIPP around 7:50 for classes to start at 8:00. Saturday school is split into 4 hour long periods with a half an hour lunch. I began looking for fun. I wanted to see what else they offered on Saturdays. I asked around to see what was going on and after finding out that 5th grade was reading all morning and 8th grade was holding class as normal, I finally found out that photography, art, and keyboarding classes were offered to 6th and 7th graders. I spent the first two periods with photography. Two members of the community volunteer their time every other Saturday morning to come to KIPP and teach the students about taking and developing pictures. Each student had a small box that was tightly taped shut, but had a pin hole opening on one of the sides. This box served as the camera, very clever. The loaded their 'camera' with a piece of photo paper and then went outside to capture their image. To capture the image, they removed the tape that covered the pinhole and let light leak in for 120 seconds. After the 120 seconds, they covered the pinhole with tape and took their cameras inside to develop their image. The instructor had the students prepare the developing table, assigning students to create the mixture that developed the pictures as well as the mixture that fixed the pictures. The students learned that the chemical to water ratio for each mixture was 1:9. After the developing table was ready, the instructor took 7 students into the dark room to develop the pictures. While we were in the dark room, a make shift closet with a dim red light, the instructor had students one by one remove the tape from their box to get their photo paper out. The students took turns putting their picture from developer to stop bath to fixer to the final wash. It was neat to see the images develop right before your eyes. As each photo developed, the instructor would ask the students if the image was overexposed or underexposed and then how to fix the exposure problem. He explained that very dark or black pictures are overexposed and received too much light while the light pictures were underexposed and didn't receive enough light. After all the images were developed the students reloaded their cameras before leaving the dark room. The instructor went around to each student to help them correct their exposure to make their next photo better. Some of the cameras or boxes were very shallow and so their photos were overexposed and needed less light. After each student had received instruction on how to make their next photo better we all went outside to take another picture and some of the students even had time to develop theirs before the next period. For third period, I played connect four with the 6th graders. It was nice to spend time with them in a relaxed environment. At 11:00, we went to cafeteria to get our Dominoes pizza. When I was finished eating my pizza I went to see what Ms. Starr was up to and we discussed the grade breakdown for the math benchmark her students just took. Only 71% of the students passed the benchmark. 6 received D's and 14 more received F's. This benchmark gave Ms. Starr an opportunity to see what needs to happen before the TAKS in April. 7 of the 14 student's who received F's were speical education students, but since they are not pulled out of the math classroom they must take the same TAKS assessment as students without special needs. This is every fustrating when you are trying to get a high percent of students who pass the TAKS. These students are at a complete disadvantage because most of them have 3rd grade abilities, but are being tested at a 5th grade level. Now if these students were at a public school and were pulled out of the classroom, then they would qualify to take a modified TAKS test. This is one disadvantage about KIPP because they do not have the staff or resources to pull out students with special needs, but there are inclusion teachers who work with the students in the classroom. We tried to brainstorm some ideas and talked about the likelihood that the other 13 students, who didn't pass the benchmark but who do not have special needs, would pass the TAKS. She explained that students always seem to pull through on the actual TAKS because in order to move on to 6th grade, they must pass the TAKS in 5th grade. Overall Saturday school was an interesting experience and I'm glad I went.

A Full Day of 6th Grade on Friday

I got to school a little early today to read the notes Joyce had left for me. My 55 minute class period consisted of going over morning work, turning in lifework, marking down positive points in the grade book, teaching about proportional sides, completing some classwork, and handing out lifework. After the 55 minutes were up, the kids went to P.E. to play dodgeball. Although I did the exact same routine in all three classes, they each went completely different....
Block 1: This is the block that I always observe in the morning and they are never a behavior problem for Joyce, but today was a different story. Morning work and taking grades went fairly well, but while I was teaching the lesson they were terrible. Mid-way through I thought of and told the students of the consequence for talking out of turn and getting out of hand would be one strike and one strike would be 2 minutes taken out of P.E. This method did not work so well because it continued to be two or three students making the disruption. I think it would have worked better if each strike were worth more time and if I would have presented the rule at the beginning of class. It was impossible to get through the lesson because there were so many interuptions. A student would be answering my question but would be interupted by another student talking out. For the actual lesson, we explored the meaning of proportional sides and how to decide if sides are proportional. I drew an equilateral triangle and an isosceles triangle and asked if they were similar. Some students said yes, while those that said no, explained that they were different shapes and therefore not similar. After some prompting, the students concluded that we had only stretched the equilateral triangle tall and not the same amount wide and to maintain proportional sides a shape needs to be expanded or shrunk the same amount in width and in length. We explored the reason for this by looking at the ratios between the sides. For example, two ratios from square one with dimensions of 4 in wide and 8 in tall to square two with dimensions 16 in wide and 32 in tall would be 4/16 which reduces to 1/4 and 8/32 which also reduces to 1/4 creating equal fractions. Then we looked at two shapes that just by looking the students could tell did not have proportional sides and we found their ratios. From triangle one with dimensions 3 in wide and 7 in tall to triangle two with dimensions 12 in wide and 21 in tall, the two ratios would be 3/12 which reduces to 1/4 and 7/21 which reduces 1/3. Since these ratios are not equal, the sides are not proportional. To have proportional sides, you need two equal ratios. From here the students had to find the missing dimension given three other dimensions and the fact that the shapes were similar. I handed out the classwork and had students work on it individually so I could go around and check for understanding and answer any questions. I let the students know that this worksheet would be their ticket to P.E. and when they finished it I would give them their lifework packet. At the end of my half of the block, they had received three strikes but they earned one back so they sat and worked on their lifework for four extra minutes. Then we all walked to the gym to play a little dodgeball. Unfortunately our dodgeball time was cut a little short because the fire alarm started going off in the gym.
Block 2: After several warnings from Mrs. Hirsh, that this class would be even more of a challenge because they are smart and lazy, I was pleasantly surprised and happy to report that they were angels. We were a little late coming back from the gym, but when I walked in the students were already at the board doing their morning work. Lets just say, thats pretty impressive for these students. With little stability from inconsistent authority among shifting teachers, these students push the envelope with anyone and need lots of prompting. From the beginning I told them about the strikes for their behavior. Out of the 6th grade I know this class the least because I never observe or teach their class, so before I began, I introduced myself and gave a little explanation as to why I was at KIPP and why I was teaching their class today. I went through the entire lesson without stopping once to correct behavior. We went through it so fast that I came up with extra examples before giving out the classwork. I had no complaints, it was by far the best class of the day. They were also the most enjoyable class for dodgeball. The girls participated and no one complained or had a bad attitude.
Block 3: I thought everything was running smoothly with this class until I realized we had three minutes left and I hadn't passed out the classwork yet. For some reason time flew by and I definitely wasn't keeping track. I figured I had spent equal time on each part of the lesson and that I was right on track. These students, who I normally teach and who still test my limits everyday, got three strikes which actually worked out perfectly because we needed the extra minutes. Their class is the worst class as far as attitudes go especially during P.E. because none of the girls want to play dodgeball. To accomodate, we had to alternate games having all the girls play a game and then all the boys. The games only lasted 7 minutes each and the girls barely participated in their own game.
After three blocks of 6th graders, I was exhausted. I picked up the room because I always forget to have them do it before they leave and then I sat at the desk waiting for 3:00 when I could go play games with the seemingly calm, mature 8th graders. [8th graders seem like adults after dealing with 12 year olds all day] While I was taking a little break, Mrs. Hirsh came by and we had our daily heart to heart. She thought I was doing a better job being more business like. She agained talked about the juggling act of teaching and then mentioned some of her past teaching experiences. We talked about the time issue and how each class seems to go differently. I commented on how difficult it was to assess students for understanding when there are 33 of them in the class. It seems like I either call on the students who are obviously not paying attention to get them to refocus or I call on the students with their hands raised. I miss probably the most important students, as far as assessment and understanding wise, who are engaged but who simply don't know the answer. I will work on that for Monday because it will be a repeat schedule of today. I was a little disappointed to find out that I would not be joining the 8th graders right away because Mr. Feliciano needed me to supervise a 6th grade class. Anyone who thinks keeping a group of 6th graders quiet for 17 min. would be an easy task is out of their mind. These students will not stop. To stay ahead and in charge you must put your coat of armor on before entering the classroom. Oh and don't forget your shield and sword. After the longest 17 min. of my life, I went upstairs and watched the final round of a game of scrabble. For the last hour of the day, I started out in Karate but decided to find the dance class. I joined them in their stretching and I learned the first few 8 counts. The dance class is made up of 10 girls and is taught by the 8th grade science teacher, who keeps the class structured and productive. After a long day at KIPP, I went with Ms. Starr to a going away dinner for Jessica, the 6th grade teacher who was fired. We had a great time and it was definitely nice to see the teachers outside of KIPP. For everyother teacher in America, Friday nights are a time of celebration because no school meets on Saturdays, oh wait except KIPP and tomorrow I get to find out what its all about.

Dodgeball and Spoons

Once a week the students have a future class taught by Mr. Boubel and since band and future were splitting a blocktoday, they accomodated P.E. by splitting P.E. with math. Kind of an interesting subjects to split time with, but whatever works. Joyce taught all three 6th grade classes today, but she is going to be gone tomorrow and Monday, so I am going to teach the baby lessons tomorrow and Monday. The rest of my day was spent observing 5th grade math learn about perimeter, playing dodgeball with 6th grade P.E., playing spoons with 8th graders, and teaching the 15 minute lesson about perimeter. I really enjoyed playing dodgeball and I think I gained a little respect from some the boys, who were surprised that I could throw and catch the ball. It must noted that I got out the P.E. instructor and we were both kind of shocked. The only bad thing about P.E. is that some of the girls get sick of playing dodgeball and then they have bad attitudes. They sit out and then give attitude when Travis is giving directions. I swear, Joyce is the only person who can handle these kids. Other people just lose leverage fast. The students could care less if you mark their card, especially when they are with their friends. I am so curious as to what the answer is. Is it soley relationships that keep these kids behaving? And is making a relationship with these students more important behaviorally then making a relationship with middle class kids. I was talking to Ms. Starr about it when I came in, commenting that they weren't even responding to Travis after P.E. and she thinks that men may have more control over their behavior just because they may be used to ignoring their mothers, but may have few male figures around and not ones they mouth off to or ignore, but this still doesn't explain their disrespect to Travis. While I was observing 6th grade math for the second time, a very interesting event occured. Let me set it up a little. Yesterday during the 5th grade meeting with Joyce, Mrs. Mallory brought up the issue of students remaining on bench for a couple of weeks or constantly getting placed on bench. Mrs. Mallory wondered about getting them out of the school because they obviously aren't focused enough to be at KIPP. Joyce explained to her that some kids who lived on bench in 5th grade have turned into amazing students in 6th grade. She said that is what KIPP is about, giving students a lot of chances. So today Jordan, a 5th grader who lives on bench and gives ridiculous attitude was put inJoyce's room for isolation, which means they go to a different grade level to sit facing the corner and do their work. So today Joyce had Jordan stand up and talk to Jose, one of the students who did a complete turn around from 5th grade to 6th grade. Joyce told Jordan that he needed to ask Jose how he did, because Jordan needs to make some big changes if he wants to stay at this school. I just thought it was so interesting that she stopped class the make this connection. I think it made Jose feel good to be a model to other students. So it gave Jose a boost and Jordan some hope. At 3:00, I went to the 8th grade game hour to play spoons with a small group of students. There is this girl named Sabrina that I have a special bond with. We played spoons together last time and then she explained all there is to know about the KIPP karate program last week. Today she was telling me about her birthday and birthday party coming up this weekend. She is a very pleasant, sweet girl and she gave me a hug today before I left to go teach 5th grade. After the 5th graders had taken and graded their quiz, I taught them a short 12 minute lesson on perimeter. It's a pretty easy concept that picked up rather quickly. I was to the point and tried to get it in their head that the definition of perimeter is the distance around the outside of a shape. It will be interesting to see how teaching all three classes of 6th will go. Good thing it is only for half the block! Have a great Friday!

A Focus Group

Well today was very uneventful. The 6th graders were taking a quiz and then doing lifework in math and the 5th graders were taking a science benchmark for the whole day. I ended up having a chance to read for one of the college classes I'm taking. [To be considered a full time student for insurance and scholarships, I had to enroll in 12 credit hours so I'm taking Behavior Modification, Theories in Counseling and Psychotherapy, an Internship, and an Independent Study.] At 10:30 I was interviewed by Lizzy, who is putting together a video to showcase Joyce's teaching style. KIPP was awarded $10,000 for their math program and as part of the grant they have to present the outstanding method or technique to the rest of San Antonio. The goal is to spread good ideas to improve the education system. They have filmed about 7 hours of Joyce's class and Lizzy is creating a 12 min. video to share with San Antonio and the rest of the world. They were going to have a focus group come to observe Joyce's class to ask questions and explain the differences between her class and a typical math classroom. The focus group fell through and so when Lizzy found out about me, she decided I would be just as good.
Here are some of the questions she asked and my answers:
1. What differences do you see between Joyce's classroom and other math classrooms you have observed? The most obvious difference is student engagement. These students are interested in the topic at hand which makes them want to participate by discussing math concepts. The students do a majority of the talking. Joyce simply guides their thinking.
2. What have you learned from Joyce? I have learned that the goal should be to get students to think math, not simply do math. If they can explain the concepts and defend their ideas, they are gaining so much more than math knowledge. They are gaining confidence to sharing their ideas as well as interest in school and the world around them. I have also learned to be flexible with lesson plans. If the students are interested in tomorrow's lesson, take advantage of it and let them learn about it.
3. Would you change anything about the way Joyce teaches? I would only change note organization. I think it is important to give them an outline and help them organize the information. I agree that the definition should not be written on the board, but maybe just the vocab word so they know they need to write it and put a definition in their own words.
4. Do you think this teaching style could work without the strict culture of KIPP? I think it would be more difficult. Students may be less likely to take the risk of expressing their ideas for fear of being bullied. They may not want to challenge another student's idea. I think it takes an accepting community of students to be able to explore math in this way.
5. Why might this technique be difficult for other teachers? Well, some teachers may not have had the opportunity to observe this type of teaching. They may not know it exists. It might also be easier to take strict notes with specific examples to present to the class, instead of taking the risk of having a student ask a question they can't answer. If a student tries to solve a problem the wrong way, Joyce can redirect their thinking. She can understand quickly where their thought processes came from and explain them back to the right path. Not everyone can do that. This technique would also be difficult to implement in the 10th grade. I believe it would be best to introduce it to students in 5th or 6th grade before their learning patterns are formed. I will tell you from my own point of view, if a teacher came in during my 10th grade year and asked me to 'talk' about math in the way Joyce does, I would have lost it. My way had been working just fine, I was getting by, I didn't need a new way because it would have been difficult to retrain my brain.
6. What are the steps to take to make this technique happen? The first thing you need is student interest. If the material is not related to their lives, they will not be interested enough to talk about it. It is not a requirement in other schools to participate, so interest is key. The teacher must make participating cool. Joyce constantly commends the students for their excellent discussions to reinforce their behavior. Next, I think the teacher would need to model the behavior he/she is looking for by thinking out loud, discussing the different possibilities and asking the right questions.
It was a very interesting conversation and I've very happy to have had the opportunity to think about her questions to summarize my experience and what I've learned so far. The more I talk about Joyce's classroom the more grateful I am to be able to observe it. The afternoon was a repeat of the morning. They did let the 5th graders have a 30 min. recess before finishing their benchmark, so that was nice. After the kids left at 2:30, we had a 5th grade meeting. My goal this week was to stay for the teacher and faculty meeting, but come to find out there was no faculty meeting, just the team meeting. Joyce joined the five 5th grade teachers to talk about how things were going. They discussed having a trial for one student who was being a total disruption and quite frankly has so many issues that he can not successfully be serviced at KIPP. They have a trial to remove the student from KIPP. This student is so emotionally disturbed and disrupts class constantly. Joyce told the teachers the great news that they had been approved to hire an extra teacher for each grade for next year which will drop the class size from 34 to 24. The teachers were thrilled. Joyce also told them they were working on other schedule changes to give the teachers more time off from Sat. school and one day a quarter to just be at school without having to teach, to simply get caught up on grading or planning. It was even nice for me to hear these improvements. It is a step in the right direction. These teachers need a break and they need more support.

The Quad Squad

I could definitely get used to sleeping in until 6:45. It took a little longer to get to school, but it was worth it. I arrived just in time for block 1 to begin. The first 40 minutes of 6th grade math was spent grading lifework and morning work and then taking grades. She went over a couple of problems from the lifework to answer students' questions. Today's lesson was about the five shapes in the quadrilateral family; parallelogram, rectangle, rhombus, square, and trapezoid. The students drew a picture of each shape in their journals and wrote a brief description. Then Joyce explained that a square has multiple names because it fits into the description of a parallelogram, rectangle, and a rhombus, but a trapezoid fits into none of those categories. The students drew a complex venn diagram to demonstrate which shapes were included in the others. Once the lifework was handed out, Joyce did a couple on the board to get them started. In the lifework they had to use the material they learned yesterday with supplementary, complementary, and vertical angles. Come to find out, 5th grade is learning the exact same thing as 6th grade. I don't really know why that is, but it was interesting to see how the material was taught by two different people to two different grade levels. I enjoyed the way Ms. Starr taught it because she connected it to a family. There were four sisters and one brother. The trapezoid was the brother because a trapezoid has only one set of parallel sides and the four sisters have two sets of parallel sides. After introducing the lesson on the board, Ms. Starr took notes as the students followed along with their own notes. After lunch, I taught 6th grade about the quad squad. I requested Joyce's presence for today's class. She has this magic that anytime she walks into the room it becomes silent and anytime she walks out it becomes loud. The students were pretty disengaged today and one actually fell asleep twice. I had to say his name to wake him up and I should have made him stand in the back to stay awake. I did have the students undivided attention and geniune interest for about 10 min. when I taught them the reason why our military defense building is a pentagon and called the Pentagon. They thought that was pretty cool. Other then that, they would listen and participate when they had too but I didn't see any real desire in their eyes. After I was finished teaching the lesson, I handed out the lifework and we did a couple on the board. I became concerned after I asked multiple students the angle sum of a triangle and no one could answer me. After class, Mrs. Boubel informed me that they know the information they were just acting up and being lazy. If I would have known that I would not have kept prodding and asking different students. Joyce thought I had done a nice job explaining questions in multiple different ways to help the students understand. I asked if she had any suggestions for their level of engagement and she just said, "We don't give them enough water and free time to stay focused for 10 hours in school." After 6th grade, I taught 5th grade and today I led the stretch, lifework, and aspirations. After I took grades, I did the little introduction to the quad squad before beginning the notes. I followed Ms. Starr's example about the four sisters and a brother. After taking notes, Ms. Starr let them do board races to review for the quiz tomorrow. During advisory today, Ms. Starr let her students have a dance after they cleaned her room. They don't have janitors at KIPP so it is part of the students' responsiblities to keep the school clean. During morning advisory, I guess her students were complaining that KIPP never lets them do anything fun. This is kind of true. If it won't help them get to college, it doesn't happen. The have 30 minutes of P.E. which sometimes turns into a little free time and they have a 20 recess after lunch. Thats it. They are silent for the first 20 min. of their 25 min. lunch and they are not even supposed to sit with their friends; they are supposed to sit in the next available seat. So Ms. Starr decided she would let them listen to music and dance at the end of the day. Oh course there were only like 4 students who actually danced, but it was the principle I guess. So we got to end the day with a little music and laughter.
~ These are pictures of Ms. Starr's classroom and me teaching the 5th grade.

Is KIPP a Solution

Well, I went to my final morning advisory period. Now that Travis Boubel took over Mr. Larson's advisory, there are no amazing talks or special lessons for the day. I basically sit in the gym for 20 minutes, walk with them to get breakfast, then sit for another 20 minutes until class starts. After talking to Joyce, I am happy to report that tomorrow I will be sleeping in an extra 45 minutes to be at school by 8:15 when block 1 begins. I observed Joyce teach block 1 about complentary and supplementary angles and took excellent notes to better prepare myself for when I would teach the lesson. I took note of the amount of time it took her to do each thing and organized a review to begin the class. The students have extremely messy, unorganized notes because Joyce does not write specific information in a neat pattern on the board so if students do not have the skills to organize their own notes, it may be incredibly difficult for them to find notes two days later. I am a student who likes instructors to organize information because they know how much space I need for each section. I understand Joyce's point about not writing all the definitions and lecturing the whole time, but I still think helping the students organize their information is beneficial. In block 2, I observed Ms. Starr teach a lesson about polygons and classifying polygons by their number of sides. Her first block class drove her crazy with multiple disruptive students and so she warned her block 2 that they were already on thin ice. While she was demonstrating that a polygon must be closed a student rudely critiqued her drawing saying, "well that one's not closed" and another student would not obey her request for him to move to the front of the room. She proceded to give the class a little lecture on easing up on their teachers. She explained that all of their teachers were stressed out by their behavior and had few solutions left to try. Although I have not been in many 5th grade classrooms, the empowerment these students feel to be so rude and disrespectful to their teachers is outrageous. They question authority and give attitude completely overstepping the boundaries. It will be interesting to compare the relationship with students and teachers at the other locations I visit. Anyways, during lunch I helped the inclusion teacher, Mrs. Duran, work on homework for a college math class she is taking. It was fun to deal with her kind of math. Then I went to teach 6th grade math. The first half went really well as far as management was concerned although I think it was because they were waiting for Joyce to walk in. About 40 minutes into the class when they realized Joyce was not coming, they began acting up a little. It was not as bad as the first time, but still not perfect. The review at the beginning of class went over really well. It was nice for the students who were absent and even for those that were in class on Friday. Today's lesson involved less discussion so I didn't feel quite as bad talking through most of it. I now know all the students' names so that helps to call on those not participating. I had to move some students and give quite a few marks for misbehavior, but I was more stern today and said, 'please' a little less. I think the students understood the material and took organized notes. At the end of class I asked Laura, a student who is very smart, pretty popular, and can be disruptive, why she was talking in class. I explained that we need to have a better relationship so she does not feel the desire to talk while i'm talking and disrupt the class. I told her that I do not enjoy moving her and giving her marks, but if she continues to disrupt class I will have to. She kind of laughed it off, but I know she understood what I was saying so hopefully it goes better tomorrow. For the last 20 minutes they worked with partners on lifework which was probably a mistake. If they weren't behaving very well individually, I shouldn't have let them work with partners. After class, Mrs. Hirsh, that gave me my teaching critique last week, gave me another one today. She agreed that today went better but gave me so more tips. She told me that I needed to completely stop for a small disruption to set the tone. If a student is talking or refuses to obey, I should stop the whole class and wait for the student to behave. She also told me to never allow group work if I was having problems managing them individually. I really do appreciate someone taking the time to let me know what they think. After that came 5th grade math, which went wonderfully. Although I like the experience and challenge of taking on both teaching and managing, it is a nice break to teach for Ms. Starr and only worry about how I am delivering the information. The lesson about polygons was a lot of fun and I felt comfortable standing in front of the students. There were hardly any pauses and I involved the students quite a bit. We learned about the three features that make a polygon a polygon which are no curved lines, no crossing lines, and closed lines. We also learned that polygons are named by their number of sides. While Ms. Starr was teaching, I learned why the Pentagon has five sides or five wings......each wing represents a different part of the military: army, navy, marines, air force, and coast guard. Very interesting. Overall, this block has been my best teaching experience. Well see what tomorrow brings!
~~To explain the title of my blog, that is the question I am pondering most right now. I have the name of a middle school that most of these students would go to if they weren't at KIPP. I am going to try to contact the school to see if I can observe there for a day. It would be interesting to compare the student teacher relationships as well as the instruction time that takes place. I think what they are doing at KIPP is wonderful, but I am just not convinced that it is the best solution.....

Friday

TGIF! Today I got to hang out with the 5th graders during P.E. and 1st block. Since they don't have a P.E. teacher, the teachers just take the students outside to run. Ms. Starr made her P.E. class run five laps in the parking lot and then let them have free time. Surprisingly, every student was active in their free time. I thought that there would be a select group who would sit by the wall and talk, but everyone was doing something. After P.E. we went in to begin block 1. Ms. Starr was giving a test today so she led them through their stretch and lifework before giving them their test. I decided to observe 5th grade 1st because the 1st block in 6th grade math was doing yesterday's lesson today and I wanted to observe Joyce teach a class that would be similar to the one I would teach. Today in 6th grade math, the students were learning how to classify triangles by sides and angles and how to prove that every triangle has 180 degrees. They used construction paper to cut out triangles, tear off the angles, and then line up the angles to see that they formed a straight angle or a line with 180 degrees. The lesson involved quite a bit of information and little down time. After lunch, I taught the same lesson to block 3. After we graded morning work and lifework and before beginning the lesson, I officially introduced myself to the class. I thought it would help my cause of management. Some of the students still didn't know why I was at KIPP and they thought I was going to be their teacher. I explained to them that I was a college student from Nebraska studying to be a math teacher and that I was teaching their class to gain experience. Mrs. Boubel was in the back of the room again, but I'd like to think that letting them know a little about me helped them behave. The lesson went well, but again I was talking quite a bit and saw some blank stares in the audience. I need to plan what I'm going to say and how I'm going to connect the material to their lives. Joyce does such a great job and for some reason I think I can just go up there and talk off the top of my head. When I do this, there are a lot of pauses and my thoughts don't come out clearly. I need to work on this in the next couple of weeks. It will also help if I know all the students' names so I can call on someone who isn't raising their hand to check for understanding. I know these aspects will come with time and effort. In the afternoon, I went the 7th & 8th grade game hour and I played spoons and speed with some of the students. The 8th graders are so pleasant and mature. After spending the day with 5th & 6th graders who demand so much attention and energy, it is nice to spend time with older students. At 4:00, I went to observe Karate which is one of the elective classes the students can choose from.
~~By the time I am finally posting this blog, it is Sunday so I hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready for another outstanding week. I want to tell you how much I adore everyone who reads my blog. I am so happy to have this medium where I can stay in touch with people and let them know what I am doing. If you ever have any questions about whats going on, just drop me an email or comment and I will be happy to do my best to answer them!

Happy Valentine's Day

I had the pleasure of beginning the day with a little Valentine's party. It almost turned into a tragic morning because there were no more french toast sticks. Everyday no fail, Tucker comes down the stairs saying, "daddy, I want french toast sticks," and Galen always answers, "What a shocker!" I was a little nervous to hear his reaction, but he took the news pretty well settling for 'boring' pancakes. When Mackenzie came down in her beautiful outfit, the kids each opened their valentine surprise before I headed off to KIPP. I observed 6th grade math have a wonderful discussion about the angle sum of regular polygons. A student asked a question that led them into to a discussion about material for tomorrow's lesson. Joyce just went with it because their brains were already moving in that direction. She told me later that so many teachers seem afraid to move their lessons around and be flexible, but she feels if the students are more interested in tomorrow's lesson today, a teacher should guide their interest. After block 1, I went to observe 5th grade math, but apparently a student had thrown a razor blade, yes a razor blade, across the class in block 1 so Ms. Starr was holding the students hostage until an administrator could deal with the situation and find the culprit because no one would fess up. Mr. Feliciano and Mr. Larson came down to deal with the issue. Before they got down there, Ms. Starr had each student write down what they saw. 12 students saw the blade fly across the room, but no one saw who did it, hmm... a little suspicious. When Mr. Feliciano got there, he became a CSI agent taking the razor into the hall to see how hard it would have had to be thrown to land where it did. The teachers explained the significance and danger of the situation and prompted the person who threw it to simply come forward and accept the consequence. Meanwhile, there was another integrity issue going on across the hall in Ms. Mallory's room. Some students were throwing and kicking papers, not quite as dangerous as razor blades, but again, no one would come forward to admit it was them. After Mr. Larson and Mr. Feliciano felt they had done as much as they could for the razor blade classroom, so they went to deal with Ms. Mallory's. Mr. Larson, the incredible speaker he is, gave the students a lecture about snitching which seemed to be the issue in both situations. Eventhough teammates saw the act happen, they wouldn't come forward and 'tell' on them. Mark told the students that a majority of the students were letting a few make this extraordinary school into an ordinary school. He explained that the classroom and school weren't Ms. Mallory's and Mr. Larson's, but theirs. He pointed out that they pour their whole lives, probably 12 hours a day, into this school so why would they let a dozen people stand in the way of their goal and make their hardwork mean nothing. He asked for examples from the past where a group stood up for something right even if it was scary and dangerous. The students came up with the Civil Rights Movement and the making of the Constitution. The students need to take charge of their lives and their school by not relying solely on the teachers to correct misbehaving, disruptive students. After the lecture, they left the students in the room alone to figure out a solution and talk through the problem. Mark then came back in Ms. Starr's room and sat down to talk to me. I must say that the two KIPP directors I have met share the interpersonal characteristic that they may be incredibly busy making them hard to meet with, but once they are talking to you their complete focus and undivided attention is on you. I was impressed that among the chaos, he sat down to discuss the situation with me. His phone went off a couple of times, but he silenced it and continued our conversation. He explained his theory that if KIPP makes a big deal about the little things, then the big things won't happen. So by stopping classes for the morning to address this issue of safety and integrity, they are sending a message to the students that these acts will not be overlooked and simply tolerated. He also believed that eventhough they may be giving up instructional time for the morning, they would get that time back later because they had addressed issue head on. I asked him what they were going to do now that no one knew who did it and he answered by asking me what I would do. To be honest, I really didn't have a response. After he talked to me, Mark gave the same speech to the razor blade classroom to give them a little something to think about. After about an hour and a half of this business, no one had confessed but I huge message was sent by the way they handled the situation and the lecture they received. After this big mess and lunch, I went to teach 6th grade math again. It went a lot better today because Mrs. Boubel sat in the back of the room and the students seemed pretty dead to be perfectly honest. The lesson was about the angle sum of regular polygons. We began by exploring what that consisted of and learning the meaning of regular. The students then observed a regular triangle, quadralateral, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, and octagon on the overhead and then talked about what they saw in the angles and sides of each shape. Then they filled out a chart about sides, angle measures, and angle sums of these regular polygons. When they were finished, we talked about the relationship between the number of sides and the angle sum. It was concluded that every time you add a side, 180 degrees are added to the angle sum. Overall the lesson went well. I felt like I was talking an awful lot instead of guiding their learning. These students preform so well in math because they don't just do math, they think math and I need to learn how to better facilitate this process. After my teaching experience I went back to 5th grade to help Ms. Starr grade papers. In the process of switching classrooms a girl was caught calling a boy 'gay.' She was immediately put on bench. I don't know if I have talked much about bench, but basically it is their discipline system. Instead of placing students on in-school suspension, they make the students go to class to learn and participate but they have certain privileges taken away. They have to sit on crates, go to isolated lunch, and talk to no one. To get off of bench, the student's parent must come in for a meeting and the student must complete the extra benchwork which may include an apology or essay about their behavior. Back to girl who had never been put on bench before and was completely devastated. She was very upset and embarrassed to be put on bench. Ms. Starr explained to her that that was the point of bench to make students behave because they did not want to be singled out. Unfortunately there are so many students could care less about the whole process because they have been put on so much. Ms. Starr talked the girl though her frustration saying she could be off bench as soon as tomorrow, if her mom came up to have a meeting. The day was full of interesting experiences and I am glad to have had the opportunity to teach again.

A Half Day

Today was pretty uneventful, but there were a couple of highlights. Both 5th and 6th grade were having quizzes so there wasn't much to observe or teach. The inclusion teacher who was with me yesterday gave me some pointers on my teaching experience. She began by telling me I was too nice and that I should take out the word 'please' from my vocabulary. She talked about the 'dance' of teaching saying its all about the flow of teaching and managing at the same time. She thought I had done a nice job teaching the material, but pointed out that any time you have to stop teaching to manage behavior, you have lost the class. She advised me to command my space with the mentality that this is my room and they are simply guests. I understand her suggestion, but since I have only been in the school for 2 weeks, I believe the room is theirs. She told me that when I got over the desire for the students to like and respect me, I would do much better managing. I think teachers have to walk a fine line between being well-liked and respected. If students like a teacher, they are more likely to behave because they don't want to disappoint the teacher. I want to run a well-managed classroom where my students enjoy both me and my class. I really appreciated the time she took to give her opinion and it never hurts to get a little constructive criticism. My only issue with her critisim of my management was the fact that she was in there with me and I didn't see her taking control of the students! The rest of the day was spent grading papers and observing. At the end of the day during the town meeting, I watched the 7th and 8th graders recieve awards of the week from their teachers. Each teacher chose one exceptional student who had went above and beyond in the area of academics and team & family. The students were excited to recieve the awards and cheered on their teammates that were awarded. After all the awards were given, the 8th graders went into a public apology. They went into a circular room with a cathedral celing that was in a different part of the gym. Apparently, a student had went on the field trip last Friday who did not earn it. He knew he was not supposed to go, but went anyway. He stood in front of his teammates to apologize for this selfishness and ask for their forgiveness. They were very receptive to his apology and applauded him when he was finished.

~P.S. A little update on Karen for those of you who are missing her in my blog. She goes on vacation during the week because I do not go anywhere except to KIPP and back home. There is not much time or energy for anything else. Its only when I go on adventures, that I ask for her attendance.
~P.S.S. The family is doing wonderfully. Tomorrow is Valentines Day and everyone is really excited to give out their treats and have a party at school. Jenn made Mackenzie the cutest valentine outfit ever. Hopefully I will get a picture to post on here.

A Brand New Day~Tuesday

Yesterday I had asked Ms. Starr about finding a teacher that would let me observe him/her teach for the first block and then teach the last block. She said she would love to let me do that, but that we should talk to Joyce first. So this morning during advisory I asked Joyce about doing that for Ms. Starr and she said she would love if I would do that for her as well since she is so incredibly busy trying to do two full-time jobs. The day ended up working out perfectly. I observed 6th grade math, observed 5th grade math, then taught 6th grade math, then taught 5th grade math. The two experiences however were completely different. The morning went well as I observed both teachers while taking notes on what I would be doing during class. After lunch I taught the last 6th grade math block of the day. Just to give a little background on the 6th graders at KIPP, they have had approximately six teachers who have came and went for one reason or another. They almost take pride in running teachers off. Everyone in the building knows that 6th grade has a huge behavior problem and blames it on the terrible transition or a black hole as some of them call it. With that said, I had a huge management issue. I was the only authority figure in the room until about 40 minutes into class when the inclusion teacher came in, whom does not exactly have an iron fist. The first 15 minutes that was spent grading morning work and life work and then taking of grades went rather well. The class went downhill from there. The students were talking and not participating. I tried giving them marks, writing their names on the board, and moving students to different seats, but this only made the rest of the class laugh and the student who was in trouble mad. When I attempted to teach the lesson on how to use a protractor, it proved to be very difficult to publicly teach 33 students how to use a protractor on the overhead. The students who were paying attention could not see what I was doing. I ended up giving them their lifework and privately teaching many of the students how to use the protractor. To make a long story short, it was exhausting. I have many issues with how it all went. I came in basically as a sub and I got just that much respect. The students did not respect me enough to obey without a threat of consequences, but if I gave them a consequence they would resent me. It was a lose lose situation. Luckily, teaching 5th grade went a lot better. Ms. Starr started the class by leading the stretch, morning work, and lifework. She then officially introduced me to the students who didn't know me, explaining who I was and why I was at KIPP. She also told the students that I had just come from 6th grade and they didn't want to scare me away so they were to be on their best behavior. She informed them that she and the inclusion teacher Mrs. Duran would be walking around giving double pentalities for lack of participation and focus. All I had to do was sit in the front and teach the lesson. It was wonderful. I think that is how it should go for people who are teaching for their first time. To only have to focus on one aspect of the classroom makes it possible to preform that task well. To try to balance both teaching and management during the first session is a little bit too much. I taught the students about the basics of geometry beginning with angle and line classification. I wrote notes on the overhead as the students copied. It went well and the students were well behaved and active participants. It definitely boosted my spirits from the previous block. Overall, the day went well and I was grateful to have the opportunity to teach with two totally different experiences. I will evaluate each experience to make changes and learn from my mistakes.

College or a Gang

I arrived this morning to discover that Mark is no longer in charge of Mrs. Boubel's advisory, but her son Travis Boubel is. He was a part-time sub and PE teacher for KIPP and I guess he joined the staff full time starting today. I observed Joyce in block 1 and I can not tell enough how wonderful a teacher she is. She has it all; managing skills, strong relationship with students, and great teaching abilites. Today's lesson was about degrees of angles. Before beginning the class, Mrs. Boubel drew the students' attention to a note on the board that read "College and gangs can never be in the same place." I guess seven students were expelled over the weekend due to gang activity and graffiti in the bathrooms. Mrs. Boubel asked some students who went on the field trip if they saw any gang members or graffiti at the university they visited. Of course they answered no and Mrs. Boubel just reiterated the fact that they have a decision to make about being in a gang or going to college. She pointed out that they work way to hard to join a gang. I love these little life lessons! For the first part of her lesson she introduced the right angle and asked students where right angles were found in the real world. From there she talked about 180 and 360 degree rotations relating it to moves on a skateboard and introduced the three ways to make an angle which include a wedge, two sides meeting at a vertex, and rotation. The students worked with partners on their classwork about the degrees of rotations and different ways to make an angle. For the twenty minutes before 5th grade math started, I observed band class. 6th grade is separated by their band instrument, so there are only four instruments and the group stays the same all day. For example, 30 students play the trumpet and travel together from math to non-fiction studies, to language arts, and then to band. Then I observed 5th grade math review their TAKS packet and work on turning fractions into decimals. After lunch, I offered to help Mrs. Quintinilla by grading spelling tests. I did that while observing Joyce teach her last class of math. For the end of the day, I went to 8th grade tutoring to discover the format of the class had been changed. Instead of math tutoring, students were only in the class from 3-4 and they would be learning how to play games such as dominoes and scrabble. Today we learned how to play dominoes and the period was relaxed and enjoyable.

My Birthday/Field Trip!!

Today was very special for the 5th and 6th graders because they got to go on a field trip. The 7th and 8th graders get to go tomorrow. Each grade goes on a quarterly field trip and the end of the year trip is a couple of days long. The 8th graders always go to Washington, DC and the other grades go to either Houston, Austin, or Dallas. On each field trip the students get to do a fun activity and visit a college or university. Today the 5th graders went to the Alamo, Ripley's Believe It or Not, and Texas Christian University. I met the 5th graders during advisory where lifework was being checked and the final list of students who earned the right to go on the trip was being created. Unfortunately only about half of the 5th grade had earned the privilege, while the other half was either a part of the issues I discussed yesterday or had too many marks on their mark card. I was responsible for a group of 12 students and had the help of a parent. The students loaded the buses and I followed them downtown because my brother was flying in and I could only stay until lunch. After searching for a parking place, I found one at a meter about four blocks away. I put as much change as I had in the meter and reminded myself to come back in 2 hours no later than 11:00. After I caught back up with my group we toured the rest of the Alamo, looking at all the informational plaques and artifacts. We then walked across the street to the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. We began by touring the basement full of fun and gross facts. It was a little challenging taking 12 eleven year olds through a museum eventhough it was interesting information. If it would have been up to them, they would have gotten through the whole museum in 10 minutes. Just because they know how to read doesn't mean they enjoy standing at every window to read the significance of the object inside. Some of us would just rather be explained the significance by someone who took the time to read it. I must admit I am one of these people. Needless to say, I had to work hard to stay in front of the group so I didn't lose any students. I did manage to remember some of the interesting sites we saw. We watched a video half way through the tour that showcased a man who could smoke a cigarette through his eyes, yes you read it right, he seemed to 'breath' in through his eyes and exhale through his mouth. This same man could blow up a balloon with his eyes as well. Amazing! For the second half of the tour we walked through the wax museum. Here is where I got to sit next to Oprah! I am an Oprah fanatic and I think she is above daytime television and should not be compared to Maurey, Dr. Phil, or Tyra. Anyways, the kids had fun taking pictures in front of the their favorite stars. Its so incredible how real they look! Throughout the tour, the kids could make wax hands and go through a miny haunted house. At 12:00, we met outside the museum and the students preformed a couple of KIPP chants. I recorded them on my camera and if I figure out how to put them on my blog you will get to see them. After standing there for 10 minutes, I realized that it was 12:10 and my meter ran out an hour ago. I immediately left the group and sprinted the four blocks, worrying the whole time that my car had gotten towed. I was relieved to find a $20 ticket instead of a $200 fee. Happy Birthday to me from the city of San Antonio!! Next time I will pay a $5 flat rate to avoid this problem.

A Great Day!

Today was my favorite day simply because it went the fastest! At advisory, Mark informed me that Leadership San Antonio was coming for lunch and he thought it would beneficial for me to hear him speak about education in San Antonio, charter schools in general, and KIPP specifically. Leadership San Antonio is a group of about 50 business leaders throughout the city who spend one Wednesday a month learning about a different aspect of San Antonio. Before lunch, I spent block 1 with Joyce in 6th grade math and block 2 with Ms. Starr in 5th grade math. In Joyce's class the students were incredibly engaged asking and debating questions. Joyce began reviewing material and the students took the lesson from there. They didn't get to any of the new material, but the discussion they had was well worth it. One question that was asked and discussed was whether ray AB is the same as ray BA. (For those of you not up to date with geometry, a ray is a line that begins at one point and goes forever in one direction.) The students then attempted to answer the question by taking turns defending their side. Some of them went to the board to persuade the class. Their ability and desire to explain math concepts has increased tremendously according to Joyce. Shy students who never spoke at the beginning of the year are going to board to explain math! It was incredible. Block 2 was not quite as exciting because the 5th graders have not quite hit that level of exploration. They were learning about estimating and rounding decimals. They were working on a TAKS sample test to get ready for the big test in a few weeks. A correction from a previous post, it was not the TAX but the TAKS test. It is comparable to ITBS Tests in Nebraska. Texas schools are famous for teaching solely to this assessment, but KIPP only prepares for a few weeks before because they set their goal much higher than simply passing the TAKS. Before beginning the TAKS practice packet, the students brainstormed the strategies to use while answering the questions. They bracket the questions, underline keywords, cross out extra information, and circle the numbers. Ms. Starr and I walked around making sure the students were on task and using their strategies. After block 2, I spent 45 min. helping set up for the lunch. During lunch, Mark presented a powerpoint beginning with the hard facts of San Antonio education. After showing graphs that compared the achievement of local schools, he had us participate in a demostration showing the scaricity of college bound students. Out of 70 individuals, only 1 of us went to college. He then introduced a brief history and timeline of charter schools before speaking specifically about KIPP. He shared with them the vision of growing the KIPP community to contain 11 schools total by 2020. After the speech, we went on tours given by the students. I had never been given an official tour so it was nice to hear what the students were taught to say. When Leadership San Antonio left, I joined 5th grade outside to play Gossip, learn about rumors, and do a raffle of prizes. Recently, 5th grade has been having problems with cliques forming, rumors spreading, and possessions disappearing, so today they sat outside and played Telephone or Gossip. The students could see for themselves how skewed the statements became after 35 people had passed on what they 'heard'. Ms. Starr talked about the importance of not spreading rumors or sharing information that is none of your business. Then they had a raffle and auction to win prizes Mrs. Lansford had brought. At 2:30, we walked the students to the buses and then I helped Ms. Starr stuff letters, written by students who are not able to go on the fieldtrip due to their behavior, into envelopes to be sent home to their parents. The 5th grade team of teachers were not having a meeting today so I went home after Ms. Starr and I had finished. Tomorrow I get to with the 5th graders on their fieldtrip to the Alamo and Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

The KIPP Advantage

I have come to love and appreciate the first period of the day. Mark is an incredible director, teacher, and person. After the students were finished passing through the cafeteria to get their breakfast, Mark asked the lunch lady if every student said thank you. Apparently there was not a 1:1 ratio of students to thank yous because Mark had each student go back through the line saying thank you to each lunch lady. As we were walking up to the classroom, a student said, "It's their job, they get paid to do that." (implying they shouldn't have to say thank you to the lunch lady) Mark heard this and so he gave a 15 min. thank you explanation. He explained that the lunch lady does not get paid to be nice or smile and eventhough she does get paid a small amount to serve the food, it does not excuse them from saying thank you. He related it to his old job at Diary Queen as well as some of their parents' jobs. Everyone deserves to be thanked for their services. He told a story of two people applying for teaching positions at KIPP whose interviews were canceled because Mark heard them speaking down to the custodian. He did not even interview them because he did not want someone like that working at KIPP. He asked the students if they had thanked the custodian for cleaning their classroom, Mrs. Delabar for putting on Greek of the Year, or Mrs. Boubel for working two full time jobs and advised them to "get on it" if they hadn't. This is the KIPP advantage! They do more than teach academics, they teach character. There is just something extra special about KIPP directors. I had a similar experience with the director of KIPP: Sunshine Peak Academy in Denver. While the director, whose desk was in the middle of the hallway, was having a conversation with me and my mom, he stopped a student who had just cut across the grass on his way inside. He questioned the student on his decision and asked him if it had accomplished his goal of getting to class faster. The director helped him answer by explaining that because of his choice he was stopped and talked to making up the time it would have taken to walk on the sidewalk. Morale of the story: don't take shortcuts, they don't get you there faster! So after advisory, I observed Joyce's 6th grade math class. Today's lesson was about lines, line segments, rays as well as parallel, interesting, and skew lines. They graded homework, learned the lesson, and worked on lifework. During block 2, I observed Ms. Starr teach about rounding and adding decimals. She uses a three strike discipline system that seems to work pretty well. If they get to three strikes, she gives them extra lifework. During block 3, I sat in Roy Feliciano's Kipp 2 College class with the 8th graders and it was the most enjoyable part of the day. They watched a video about a middle school boy with an anger managment problem, who takes his frustration out on peers who make fun of his clothes and his lack of money. After the video, the students discussed the meaning of social class and how it might effect their lives in high school. Mr. Feliciano discusses real life issues with the students preparing them for next year. He explains that for many of them, next year will be the first year where 90% of the population will not be Hispanic. After the video, they finished reading Sunita Sen, a book about a middle school girl who is going through an identity crisis, being pulled between her Indian and American culture. For the last couple of months students have been reading the book aloud in class to reinforce their abilities. As lifework, the 8th graders had to fill out an application to STEM High School. (Science Technology Engineer Mathematics) STEM is a brand new magnet school that holds a lottery this Friday. Mr. Feliciano's hope is that many students will get in and then they will have two weeks to make a decision. In the next couple of weeks many of the area highschools will be holding their lottery, so the students have the opportunity to receive all their acceptance letters before making a final decision. After lunch, I started block 4 6th grade math again. I was actually able to teach the lesson today about lines and line segments. I think I did a pretty good job explaining the terms, but I could have done a better job relating the material to their lives. I am learning more names every day which makes it easier to establish positive relationships. At 3 I went to take over 8th grade tutoring. The 8th grade math teacher was gone today so there was no worksheet for the students to work on. Yesterday I had brainstormed some ideas to make this session more productive and less chaotic. I was able to talk with Joyce earlier in the morning about the concerns I had and how to solve them. She reassured me that normally I would not be the only teacher in the room, but there are just so many teachers out this time of year due to illness. She also told me they are going to change the format on Thursday because it isn't going the way they would like. I used Ms. Starr's three strike method during todays tutoring. If they were too noisy, they would get a strike and if they got three strikes I would take away their privilege to talk. The first hour went considerably better, while the second hour got three strikes. Then I had to lay down the law and take names of any students who were talking during silence. At the end of class, I ran to my car so I could get on the road! Luckily I made it on time and it only took me 30 min to get home. As a side note, I want to reassure you that despite the grim pictures, I feel completely safe in the neighborhood KIPP calls home. If you have any specific questions about whats going on, just let me know. I am just choosing the highlights of my day!

Week Two

After a great weekend that went way too fast, it was time for another wonderful day at KIPP:Aspire Academy! During advisory this morning Mark asked the students if they knew the two big events one of which happened yesterday and the other which will happen tomorrow. All of the kids knew about the Super Bowl and Mark spent a few minutes asking and explaining about the significance of the Giants winning. (It must be added that I was heartbroken for the Patriots, who are such a humble, wonderful team.) The students had a harder time naming Super Tuesday, but were able to easily announced the two front runners on the Democratic side. I love that Mark spent a few minutes discussing current events to get the students involved in whats going on in the world around them. They will be informed enough to give input if the topic arises in conversation with a parent, friend, or teacher. Block 1 was spent with Joyce observing her teach a geometry lesson about lines, line segments, and polygons. She had volunteers hold yarn to demonstrate the difference between a line and line segment. The students worked in pairs to discover the definition of a polygon by observing examples of polygons and non-polygons. The students did a great job listing the requirements for a shape to be considered a polygon: closed, 3 or more lines, straight lines, and no intersection of lines. I love that Joyce and other teachers at KIPP, have a desire for perfection. If tasks are not done right, teachers have no problem making the students do them again. For example, if students are noisy while walking into the classroom or messy on their work they will redo the task. She also has the students write and talk about math which is a pretty difficult task. It takes a while to learn how to put what you see and understand in your mind into words. To develop this ability she has them write definitions of math terms in their own words. I was able to spend a couple of minutes with Roy Feliciano, who is head of KIPP 2 College, before he had a parent meeting. He helps the 8th graders and their parents find highschools that will keep the kids on the path to college. In meetings with parents, Roy's favorite word is environment. He explains to the parents the importance of placing their children into a college prep highschool where at least 7 out of 10 people will go to college as opposed to the local public high school where 7 out of 10 people won't go to college. He explains to them the likelihood of their child following the crowd, no matter the consequence. This competing for high school concept is completely new to me. Having only one public middle and high school, the idea of applying to get into highschool seems absurd, but they do it. Prestigious boarding schools on the east coast such as Exeter and Deerfield have sent recruiters to KIPP:Aspire to interview a couple 8th graders. These schools cost anywhere from $5,000 to $29,000 per year and these students are lucky enough to get full rides, plus transportation home, plus an allowance. For those who don't go to a boarding school, they apply for the small magnet schools in the San Antonio area. Mr. Feliciano's main focus is to get the students into small schools where they won't get lost in the crowd. At lunch today I got to catch up Miss Star finding out she had come down with a terrible flu. While we were sitting across from each other a boy said to Miss Starr, "It's just like looking in a mirror, isn't it?!" He was implying how similar we look which is hilarious. I will have to get a picture of Miss Starr and me together so you can see for yourself. For block 3, I sat in on Mr. Young's science class and then at 2:00 I went in to start the block 4 6th grade math class. Mrs. Boubel had a meeting and asked me to go ahead and start. It went pretty well. Time was spent writing lifework problems on the board, explaining them, and taking grades. From 3-5 I was with 8th graders tutoring math. I was the only teacher present today which was interesting. I have come to realize that these two hours are simply worthless. The students have a worksheet they are supposed to complete, but even if they focused all their attention on it, it would only take 15 min. to complete. They come in, talk, work on the worksheet a little bit, guess on the ones they don't know, and talk some more. It's frustrating because I'm not really clear on when they can and can't leave the room and how productive the period is supposed to be. I don't have much leverage on the students as far as discipline is concerned and they hardly know me, so I feel bad being super strict when we don't even have a relationship because that just causes resentment. I'm hoping to get some answers before I sit through another 2 hour session like that. After school I learned a huge lesson about living in a city: Traffic patterns shift within a matter of minutes. I left the school 7 minutes later than usual. What does this translate to? 7 times longer to get home, you guessed it. I'm not a particulary patient person, as many of you may know, so when the freeway comes to a stop, I go ahead and get off. I figure, I might as well be proactive, right?! Wrong. I have learned my lesson. Tomorrow I will leave school grounds no later than 4:55 and I will stay on the freeway no matter the speed of traffic! I also included some pictures of today. Most of them are pretty self explanatory. Donna is a student in the 8th grade tutoring class, a little self photo is always an excellent protrait! Hopefully I will continue getting photos. Hope your Monday was great!

The end of the week!

Thursday:  Today was very exciting for Mark's advisory because there were only two students who did not have their lifework completed so tomorrow they are hoping for perfection.  As usual I observed 6th grade math during block 1.  Today they were learning about pie graphs. She began by asking them where they had seen pie graphs in the real world.  They talked about their parents using pie graphs to budget their money or their business's money.  They went through a couple of examples in the book and reviewed how to draw a pie graph before they worked on problems in the book.  Once they were completed with the book work, they received their lifework for the night.  These students do a lot of work throughout the day and also at night. They need to master these skills before they move on and in order to get them caught up to continue they reinforce the material over and over.  As I mentioned yesterday, the other two classes are struggling in math and in block 2 there were only 11 people who earned a passing grade on their lifework from the night before.  (If students receive below a 60 on an assignment they do not 'fail' but receive a 'not yet' which means they are on lunch bench to redo their assignment to a satisfactory level)  Students check their lifework and morning work at the beginning of class and so 15 min into the class when Joyce realized how many students performed poorly she made the decision to separate the class.  She asked the 11 who had passed to move to edge of the class and continue on in the book and the remaining 18 were re-taught the lesson from yesterday.  Since I had just observed Joyce teach the class before she asked me to teach a little lesson to the 11 students moving on.  I was thrilled to get a chance to teach and it went pretty well.  Oh course once I was done, I thought of ways I could have made it better and was hoping to get a chance to teach it again during block 4, but that didn't end up happening.  In case you were wondering, after the repeat lesson Joyce taught the 18 students the lesson scheduled for that day so they were only 20 min. behind not an entire day.  I thought it was a great decision to re-teach the lesson so they would not get even more lost in the days to come.  After lunch/recess (I must add that it was incredibly windy today and I was a little cold, not like you have any sympathy for me, but I wanted you to know that it isn't 70 and sunny everyday.)  For block 3, I went to help out with 5th grade.  Poor Miss Starr has been sick the past couple of days and so the teachers were spread a little thin.  I ended up helping Mrs. Quintanilla who is the 5th grade reading teacher.  She is a fabulous lady who believe it or not is shorter than I am! She had me give the students a reading assessment where they would read for 1 min from a passage and then I would record the number of words they read correctly.  It was a very interesting experience and I really enjoyed it.  I believe the results may be a little skewed because some students were reading so fast they didn't stop for periods or commas, while others, who were also wonderful readers, read out loud beautifully, pausing and adding emotion in their voice.  The afternoon went incredibly fast because I continued giving reading assessments until about 3:30 when I went to tutor the 8th graders.  The tutoring session was enjoyable, but time passed slowly because the students don't need help every second.        ~Today's drive home was incredibly exciting.  I attempted my 4th route home and at first it did not go so well, but after a couple of entrances onto 281 north I discovered the same street I get to work on!  These stupid freeways have on ramps at certain roads, but no matching off ramps, or so I thought.  I took a shot in the dark by exiting on airport blvd.  I didn't think I would ever be happy to see the infamous three-way-stop that takes 8 minutes to get past in the morning but it made my day.  Karen and I had a break through today.  I realized that we need each other because clearly neither one of us can reach a destination alone. lol                                                     Friday:  On the first Friday of the month there is something called Friends of KIPP.  Business, church, and college people from the community come to the school to learn about the program to possibly volunteer or donate their time and money.  They have a little breakfast, listened to Mark speak, and then receive a tour from 7th and 8th grade students.  Today was a little unconventional because 5th, 6th, and 8th grade math classes were taking life challenges or tests so I found other classrooms to help with.  For block 1, I observed Mr. Young with 5th grade science. They were learning about motion and force.  After answering some introductory questions about motion, force, and work, Mr. Young led an incredible discovery lesson.  The entire time he guided the discussion allowing them to brainstorm and find the answer themselves.  It seems to be a theme at KIPP and I love it.  The students figured out motion and force rather quickly, but the meaning of work in science was extremely difficult for them to grasp.  After about 7 min. of trying to understand work with little success, Mr. Young asked for 4 volunteers who went to the board and tried to move the wall.  Students then had to discuss if the students had done any work. After another couple of minutes, the students decided that motion was needed for work to occur.  I absolutely loved observing this class.  It was exciting to see the technique Mr. Young used and the process of thought the students used to come to a conclusion.  In the middle of class when the students were behaving wonderfully, Mr. Young asked them to freeze.  He walked around with his yard stick to check the students slant or posture. What?! These students are sitting quietly and participating wonderfully, but that is not enough for Mr. Young.  He wants them sitting straight with their feet on the ground. I'm not going to lie, I caught myself fixing my slant when he reminded the students because I was not sitting straight with my feet on the floor! In Mr. Young's class, students get marks on their mark card for being reminded to slant and track while in other classes it takes numerous times of talking out or not following instructions to get the same penalty.  I think there should be a happy medium, but I love the way Mr. Young runs his classroom.  For block 2, I helped Mrs. Quintanilla's low level reading class with reading assessments.  I witnessed dyslexia and a language barrier during this group of students.  The word 'saw' was in the first line of text and a couple of students read 'was'. After looking at the word I understood their mistake.  The word 'gently' was also in the text which was an obstacle for Hispanic students.  I could see them thinking about the sound of an English 'g' trying to override the sound of a Spanish 'g'.  After lunch/recess, I checked 5th spelling tests until 3:00 math tutoring.  An uneventful afternoon, but it went relatively fast.

~As I was walking to my car, I saw a man in a nice car that I had seen on Thursday.  On Thursday this man and his wife smiled and waved at me from their car and today, the man rolled down his window and asked me what I was doing at the school.  I began explaining to him why I was there and he got out of the car to introduce himself and we continued talking. He has a 5th grade daughter and 7th grade son at KIPP and his family just loves the school.  They do not live in the district and had to be chosen by lottery to get into the school. He showed me a picture of his children and he continued talking about how wonderful the school was and how thankful they were to have gotten in.  He asked me where I was staying and gave me his business card because come to find out he 'works' probably owns a hotel and told me if I ever needed a hotel to give him a call.  After looking at the card, I realized the hotel was on the River Walk.  Talk about nice!  Thats why I'm down here to make connections both formal and informal.  

I could not be happier that it is Friday, but overall this week has been incredible and I have learned so much about KIPP specifically and teaching in general.                                         

Here is some more information about KIPP:

  ~The students abide by a strict dress code consisting of a shirt (depending on their grade) that is tucked in, khakis, and closed toed shoes.  5th grader wear gray t-shirts that say "no excuses, no shortcuts" 6th graders wear blue t-shirts that say "we do the right thing no matter who sees" 7th graders wear red t-shirts that say "we are a team with the same goal" and 8th graders wear gold t-shirts that have a long saying about what they believe. 

~Salary for 1st year teachers at KIPP is 5% higher than the district salary and during the 2nd year and on the salary is 10% higher than the districts salary.  So a little incentive but you still have to be a person extremely passionate about these kids.

~KIPP: Aspire's mascot is an Archer and there are targets all over the school with the letters ACF which stand for Aspire College Future. 

~As 8th graders, students compete for elite high schools around the country.  They go through the application and interview process to hopefully get accepted into great boarding or magnet schools.  I was able to talk to the head of KIPP 2 College today and I will be hanging out with him on Monday to learn more about the process.

That is enough KIPP for one week, but I will continue to keep  you posted.  Have a great weekend!!