My First Day @ My Last School

Upon arriving in Chicago at 10:00 Sunday night, my host asked if I knew anything about the school I was to be observing. I told her, yes, that it was all girls, leadership charter school and they knew I was coming. She was concerned because she heard from a friend that this school was in a bad neighborhood and that I was to arrive and leave early and not allowed to take public transportation. At this point, I'm kind of freaking out, thinking I don't know how long I will be staying in Chicago and I'm really surprised that my contact person didn't mention anything about this. After looking into the situation a little further we found out that we weren't talking about the same schools. Thank God. Betsy, my host, had found a school in the 8100 block on south Calumet and my school is in the 2600 block on south Calumet. Big difference. So on Monday morning I started my day by getting out of an incredibly tight parallel parking space and then teaming up with Karen, my G.P.S. system. Just in case you were wondering, Karen and I have a great relationship right now and I would consider her one of my best friends. She received this title after helping me navigate the crazy Chicago streets at night. Just as a side note, Chicago drivers are crazier than San Diego and San Antonio drivers combined. Speed limits are simply suggestions by which I mean, traveling at a speed of 15 over the limit qualified me for the far right lane, as in slower traffic, stay to the right. I guess they figure cops have more important things to do, which kind of scares me. Anyways back to my day at YWLCS which stands for Young Women's Leadership Charter School. I met with Mr. Tapia first thing in morning and we took care of some administrative business before he showed me around the school. The school is 7-12 and specializes in math, science, and technology. The student population is made up of 70% African American, 15% Latina, 14% Caucasian, and 1% Asian American with 80% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunches. Mr. Tapia informed me that I would be working with Mr. McCain on senior projects and observing Mr. Woodard's math classes. It was nice to be given specific direction because it helps to alleviate stress and acclimate faster. We stopped in a senior project meeting where Mr. Woodard was addressing the seniors who had to remain on campus or at least check in for their senior project. As I understand it now, throughout the year, seniors work to develop an idea and proposal for their final project. Students who had good proposals and needed no additional help or guidance on the project are not required to be in school for three weeks starting today. Those seniors who failed to create a proposal, need additional help, or need to make up a class, are required to attend school from 9:00 to 12:50 each day. As I learn more about the projects I will fill you in. After walking around with Mr. Tapia, I observed Mr. Woodard's 11th grade math class where they were learning how to eliminate a variable to solve a system of equations. His teaching style is traditional and his management is wonderful. The girls were calm, mature, and focused. Everyone seemed engaged and willing to participate. I look forward to being in there to help out and possibly teach a lesson. Lunch consisted of driving around the streets of Chicago, returning to the school with no more in my stomach than when I left because getting food would have required me to park my car which seemed a little daunting. After lunch I met three female math teachers in their weekly math meeting. There are six math teachers at YWLCS and three were missing for the meeting today. The meetings consist of one teacher presenting a lesson to the other teachers and receiving feedback and suggestions. The teacher presenting today teaches 7th grade and her lesson was about percents. She was going to have them work with percent bars to understand part and whole relationships without teaching them the cross-multiplication rule. For the last period, I observed a 7th grade math class and boy was that an experience. The teacher warned me about their energy, but not about their lack of attention or focus. I can't say that the teacher had the classroom under control once. They didn't even get to the objective for the day which was passing back their quizzes and correcting them. The students were supposed to be working on some story problems, but the only group that was on task was the table the teacher was standing at. I decided to start walking around to try my luck at getting people on task. The girls were pretty receptive to my help and to my suggestion to work. I was able to explain the problems to some of the girls and interact with them on a one-to-one basis. I am excited to be at YWLCS and I believe it is the perfect place to complete this experience.