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

Having High Expectations in the Classroom Make a Difference

Several weeks ago, I was invited to a party in which I was able to meet a couple of NYC teachers who serve our elementary students. In the beginning I was pretty excited because in my head I was thinking we would be able to share our experiences and struggles, however, the experience was completely different and disappointing. While having our small conversations, some things were obviously, in my opinion, wrong. 

First of all, this person shared that she had issues helping all the 2nd graders in the classroom with tying  their shoelaces. My response to that was that if this is something she needed to do with many, maybe it was a good idea to teach them how to tie their shoes by modeling it for them. Her response was close to "how can you teach many kids how to tie their shoes?, I have 29 kids to do this for and they are not able to do it by themselves". The problem with her response was not the part of teaching them how to do so, but the fact that she already thought "THEY ARE NOT ABLE". This mentality made very angry and my response was a bit brusque because in the future years, her students will come to me and they will already be low with some skills. I simply said: "I teach kids with learning disabilities as well as those who are emotionally disturbed, they are mixed with kids who are higher and the teaching varies from student to student and we also have 29 students as average, but I do NOT do things for them, they NEED to learn it by themselves." She stayed quiet and we just switched conversations. 

Although, some of us, are learning the way to keep these high expectations with kids who are, unfortunately,  thought to not be able to succeed, it truly pays off! During parent-teacher conference, parents were giving me feedback on how their children I teach actually go home and do their work because they know I will not be happy the next day if the work is not completed. The parents see changes in their children and these are good changes! These changes involve having ownership of responsibility and knowing that they are expected to achieve higher. One of these parents was a parent of one of my IEP students (lingo for a child that receives special ed services). This parent was able to share how she is, now, trying to set high expectations with her daughter at home. Hearing both  child and mother share how they feel and think about expectations is a great feeling!It was such a good moment because although they may see me upset when things are not done, they know I am not expecting mediocre work, but the work that should be given by any 6th grader!

Moral of this blog: Students know when you have high expectations, keep them high at all times! They know when you care and when you do not. 

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