Summer School's Impact On Students

In this country, we offer students many chances to fulfill their requirements of responsibility. One of these second chances is summer school. As a student, I did not know what it felt to be in summer school or, in other words, summer school did not exist in my vocabulary. However, as a teacher, summer school is a word I hear every day. It is an idea our students rely too much on.

My first time teaching summer school was last summer. It was an interesting opportunity for me to go through because I was able to choose my subject, and also make a last impact on students who we know can do better than what they have achieved. 

As of February, 2016, every student I taught during summer school is either afraid of me teaching it again or have thank me for being their summer school math teacher. I am not offended by this because I know my expectations are never low, nor I took it as a "free money" summer. I was interested in the students' knowledge. 

Last week, one of these students came to me, in front of my Assistant Principal and said: "I'm sorry Ms. C. but when I was in summer school, I was not afraid you. I was afraid of Ms. G. (referring to me) because she made it clear that I would not be passing my grade if I was late or did not do my homework, but instead, I learned what I did not learn during the school year...Thank you Ms. G.". Her statement made me feel powerful. I have shown to them that it is important to work hard for good outcomes and that they should not wait until summer school to keep up their grades. 

This is just one of the many statements different students have made to me about their summer school experience. With this said, I am not sure if I would do it again but it was definitely an experience to remember. 

I love this profession regardless. Period!

- Ms. A

Paying it Forward

While walking home, this stranger holds my arm and with her frantic look tries to ask me where is 7th ave in Harlem area because she didn't know it (I was shocked since this is not very common in the city). I recognized her accent and knew she didn't speak English but Chinese just wasn't sure which dialect. I asked her in mandarin if she spoke it, immediately looked at me, held her chest and smiled while asking if I was Chinese and I could help her. I told her I wasn't Chinese but I would try to help her. She just gave me the note below and had no idea what it said until my brain somehow recognized characters (simple ones) to more or less understand where she needed to go. I told her I would take her there and again, held her chest and trusted me.. She arrived where she needed to go to. Her look was similar to the one I had when I had first arrived to Yiwu, China when I had no phone and almost cried until a group of elders lent me their phone, gave me some water, and told me it was going to be ok..

I was not sure when I would return the favor, but it seems I did already. :) 

The Power of Understanding Math Concepts in Middle school

I am more than happy to share this with you all! This year, I am teaching 6th and 7th grade math!!! I love teaching something concrete such as MATH!!! LOVE it! With this in mind, I have to say I love it when students feel proud of their work and understand the skill when it is given to them in steps or  in detail.  The two students I am showing work from are two kids who DISLIKE math! They are always insecure and tend to have a hard time working independently, however, during this class, they were the ones that wanted to explain their work and even labeled how they worked throughout their independent work! During their sharing time, they came up to the front and explain what this data means!! I ALMOST cried because they made me so proud! They feel comfortable with my explanation, but most important, they feel comfortable with math! Now, its time for them to feel this comfortable throughout the year! I have to keep on fighting the hate against math!. 

The pictures below shows their way of setting up the problem given to them. Love the organization from each one of these individuals! I truly had a #proud # teacher moment! 

What does ICT mean for a Special Educator? Positives and Negatives

This is my fourth year teaching in in NYC, second year teaching in the Bronx and the more I learn about my profession, the more I fall in love with it, but it also becomes more challenging! 

This is also my second year teaching in an ICT (Integrated Co-teaching) environment but this time, all my classes have an ICT setting.  Although this is my second year teaching in such setting, I have put together some personal positives and negatives about being a Special education teacher working along with a general education teacher. 

Positives:
- Co-planning can be great when both personalities respect and show each other a level of professionalism. 
- If material is given to the special educator before the actual lesson, then it is easier to modify it. 
- Students have double the help when it understanding the content becomes a problem.
- There are multiple ways of gathering data in which the responsibility is shared.
- Students and teachers feel comfortable and enjoy the class.
- Projects can be directed differently depending on the students' needs and preferences.

Although all of these points seem logical, sometimes it does not work that way leading to the following negative points:

- When teachers don't communicate, students can see it and may take advantage of it.
- Lessons are not planned carefully.
- Mediation between the two parties is needed.
- Everyone becomes miserable. 
- Students show negative behaviors. 
- Personalities may clash and it will not create a good professional environment. 

The reason I am only labeling these four negative points of ICT is because these are the points I can see causes direct effect on our students and our teaching methods. 

ICT is supposed to help the students and it works wonderfully when the two teachers have great ways of working together and treating each other equally.  My experience so far has been both positive and negative. 


Note: I will write another blog in the middle of the year to see if something has changed or not. Thank you for reading. 

A Subway experience and a “teacher” attitude

While leaving the chiropractor’s office, and getting into the A train. I decided to sit right next to these amazing little African American kids (ages of 8, 9, 11 and 12) who were being loud and, some people can say “annoying”. While sitting there, I decided to listen to my favorite DJ, Kygo, on Spotify. Minutes later, I look up to see the following:

- Everyone is quiet looking down
-One of the kids is holding his neck (crying so loud)
- The other kids are next to him telling him to “Shut the fuck up”

While all of this is happening, none of the adults did anything to solve the problem. All they did was stare at them and make faces of annoyance. This was a moment for me to remember that NYC is a huge city with lots of people, yet we have forgotten to be giving and caring; in other words, this society tends to be very selfish at times. They just forgot that these kids needed some guidance and no one dared to help. 

This was a moment that I took 2 seconds to think about what I should do since I am sitting right next to them. When I looked at the kids, they just stared at me and I started by asking the following:
Me: What happened?
Kid 1: I smacked in against the seat (these seats are so hard and uncomfortable).
Me: Why would you do that?
Kid 1: Because he was annoying.
Me: Well, I was hit by you guys 3 times but I did not smack anyone. Did I?
Kid 1 and 2: No you did not.
While the child is still crying, I am trying to stop him from being loud and call the attention, which after 5 minutes I did that. We made a connection and it felt amazing! Everyone else was looking at me as if I had 3 heads and 5 arms.
What made this trip an amazing experience was the following:
I asked them if their math tests were easy or hard and all of these kids said it was easy. My second question whether if they had good grades. 2 out of the 4 students said they had really good grades and that math was easy for them. I immediately continued the conversation by asking them about the drumming while in the subway. They told me they were just having fun. I told them I was horrible at drumming because I am not coordinated. They told me to follow them and do exactly what they were doing, which, I did and they were cheering after this. After that, I asked them what else are they good at and they started rapping to “milk and cereal” which was a song they created on their own! I was shocked because we all had fun and the crying child forgot about crying and started rapping with us! The interactions we had amongst ourselves had other people listening and looking at us with smiles in their faces. My teacher persona came out and I told them I was getting off at the 125 stop and that I needed them to not be too loud and be respectful with each other. They did their math and told me exactly how many blocks away from me they live. One even said: “I’ll save your seat and no one would take your spot”. We had a truly, solid, human interaction in which the teacher learned about them and they learned about me. Would I ever see them again? I do not know, but they changed my perspective and my judgement.

Children are children, it is up to us to show them gratitude and teach them the greatness of the world; however, we are also humans and we are constantly learning. I definitely learned about their different type of intelligence different individuals possess and I learned that I do not want to be selfish and I want to act when someone is in need. It is a story I wanted to share with y’all. 

#nycsubwayexperiences