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!