Upon coming to Phillis Wheatley on Monday, I was placed in 3rd grade. They placed us without regard for our content area. The 3rd graders are great. I was a big help to the teacher. We were teaching writing, reading and math. The more one-on-one help we could give, the better. Several kids took medicine and slept for most of school; however, later in the week, they started to sleep less and work more. One girl cried when she felt too crowded. Another girl cried when she needed help. There are many brilliant kids. About 15% of the kids live in a homeless shelter. Some kids read well, yet struggled with math, or vice versa. One girl was good at math, reading and writing. I wonder why she was in summer school? Other kids were labeled special education for behavioral issues, although they were no less intelligent than others. Each child was precious. It was amazing to know each person by name and personality. I loved adapting to each child. Overall, I had three days to delve in about twenty kids’ lives and learn classroom management from a veteran teacher. Now, I will be transferred to I.S. 302 Rafael Cordera Y. Molina School that is also in East New York, Brooklyn. They need a science teacher. Teaching middle school is more similar to high school biology come September.
For fourth of July, Jan Dolle invited me to her apartment at Park Slope, Brooklyn. It so happens that Jan directed Summer In the City in Detroit in 1999 and 2000. Jan and her husband know many of the social reconciliation Christians I met in Detroit during Urban Immersion Spring Break 2007 and our Mission Serve trips. Now, I got to met many NYC social reconciliation Christians of all ages. I met staff and ex-staff of Here’s Life Inner City, Campus Crusade for Christ in NYC. They told me about Greater Restoration Baptist Church in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I plan to go there tomorrow. This church has afterschool and GED/Literacy classes just like every inner-city church should have, yet many do not. In the past, when I would look at a church, I would usually consider, “Do my friends or peers go there?” or “Do they have good sermons?” However, now, I look at how a church is helping the community, if at all. The more they serve the community, the better.
The Pace University coursework is unpleasant, yet my classmates are wonderful. One fellow wisely said, “It is low level teachers teaching classes that are too long.” I expected education classes to teach all the nuances of active learning. Instead, our teacher has boring powerpoint lectures with little content and discussion. They give us volumes of reading assignments, which I do not read because it is not helpful. Instead, I read The Reluctant Disciplinarian and The First Days of School, or prepare innovative lessons. Fortunately, the NYCTF classes are better, because they are more practical. I learned more from 4 hours of NYCTF workshops than 16 hours of Pace University classes. I hear that other universities are similar. The best asset of NYCTF are the fellows. Experienced fellows teaching new fellows is ideal. Education school faculty offer little substance; hence, college education classes are commonly described as, “fluff.”
I recently learned that some administrators encourage some students to fail state exams. If a child is not performing well, some believe they would do better in a smaller special education classroom, rather than a class with 30 other students, although the child does not have Down’s syndrome, autism or other classic special education needs. Some administrators would purposely schedule a class early in the morning hoping that a child would miss the class and not pass the state exam. On the other hand, if a child fails a class, but passes the Regents exam for that class, then administrators will usually change the student’s grade to pass the class. Lastly, starting this year there will be a letter grade (A, B, C, D or F) assigned to each school based on a bell curve. The bottom 15% of schools will receive a D or F, and will likely be closed. The top 15% of schools will receive an A, and the principal (not school, students or teachers) will receive a ~ $20,000 bag of cash!
Originally published at Interconnectedness. Please leave any comments there.
