Tom’s story

Tom Dunn, my Institute co-partner this summer in Atlanta, made The New York Times! His intriguing story of death row lawyer turned inner city school teacher graced the newspaper’s Education section yesterday:

ATLANTA — “Pick your head up, buddy,” Tom Dunn said to Darius Nash, who had fallen asleep during the morning’s reading drills. “Sabrieon, sit down, buddy,” he called to a wandering boy. “Focus.”

Mr. Dunn’s classroom is less than three miles from his old law office, where he struggled to keep death row prisoners from the executioner’s needle. This summer, after serving hundreds of death row clients for 20 grinding, stressful years, he traded the courthouse for Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

The turmoil of middle school turns many teachers away, said the school’s principal, Danielle S. Battle. Students’ bodies and minds are changing, and disparities in learning abilities are playing out.

“A lot of people will say, ‘I’ll do anything but middle school,’ ” she said.

But this is precisely where Mr. Dunn chose to be, having seen too many people at the end of lives gone wrong, and wanting to keep these students from ending up like his former clients. He quotes Frederick Douglass: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

To read more of this New York Times article entitled “Once Convicts’ Last Hope, Now a Students’ Advocate”, click here.

Some encouragement

Jennifer, my summer school student who read to me nightly over the phone while in Atlanta, called me this past Thursday while I was at the John Marshall staff retreat. When I returned her call today, she knew right away that it was me:

Me: “May I speak to Jennifer?”

Jennifer: “Hey, Miss Hancock!”

Me: “Hi, Jennifer! It’s so good to hear from you.”

Jennifer: “Guess what? I found out that I passed the reading portion of the CRCT last week!”

Me: “Excellent! I am so proud of you. I knew all of your hard work this summer would pay off.”

Jennifer: “Yea, I scored 12 points over the passing score.”

Me: “That is wonderful!”

Unfortunately, I found out that Jennifer didn’t pass the Math portion of the exam and has a hearing scheduled on Monday with the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) Appeals Committee to determine if she can still move onto high school this fall. She said that she will call me next week to let me know the outcome of her hearing.

Note: For APS 8^th grade students, they must pass both the Reading and Math portions of the CRCT exams in order to graduate from 8^th to 9^th grade. However, for students who do not pass, there is an appeals process that provides students an opportunity to be reviewed by administrators. Veteran teachers at my school in Atlanta told me that normally these students are allowed to graduate to high school as long as they showed effort in summer school.

Jennifer’s news of passing the CRCT Reading exam is extremely encouraging. At times this summer, I wondered if as their Reading teacher I was helping my kids at all. And now, as I prepare for my classroom in Indianapolis, I get overwhelmed thinking about everything I have to do before the first day of school and if I even have the ability and knowledge to teach anything. Knowing that with my help Jennifer was able to pass this high stakes CRCT Reading exam is heartening and helps me stay positively focused on the daunting tasks ahead of me this school year.

Round Zero

Today at 5:00 PM completed my seven-week Teach For America summer training, or what I liked to call “boot camp.” It seems surreal that TFA is finally done planning every moment of my life. At times, I thought this day would never come. Of course, though, the real work is just beginning- that is preparing for students to walk into my classroom on Wednesday, August 12.

This week’s training in Indianapolis was the start of what TFA calls “Round Zero.” All Indianapolis corps members met at Marian University for structured sessions with Indy staff members, online tutorials and other activities. Round Zero’s primary purpose is to help corps members take everything they learned from Institute and apply it to their specific region, school, classroom and content area.

My favorite day of this week was today, Friday. For lunch we went to the Indianapolis Challenge Foundation Academy, a charter school, for a luncheon with Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. Also in attendance were the Indianapolis Teaching Fellows and Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellows which are somewhat-similar programs to that of Teach For America. After lunch we returned to Marian University for First Day Sessions. These sessions gave us the chance to watch and take notes as TFA staff members and 2008 Indianapolis corps members role-played the first day of school in their classrooms. This was not only fun, but also a valuable opportunity to secure resources that will assist us in preparing for the first days and weeks in our own classroom.

This week we also were able to visit our assigned schools and complete any necessary school paperwork. Many of the new corps members (including me) who will be working for Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) had a meeting with the IPS H.R. Director to fill out paperwork, sign contracts and receive information about our benefit options. I can’t believe that I will finally be making an actual salary and be receiving my own benefits! What’s even harder to believe is that a mere three months after graduation I will be responsible for real children!

What’s next

Summer Institute ended yesterday, and I arrived home to Indianapolis this evening. I have many stories to share from my last week at Institute which I hope to write about soon. In the meantime, this is what’s coming up for me during the next month and a half:

Orientation, July 13-July 17: A.K.A. Round Zero. I have heard that Round Zero is a lot like Institute, only in Indianapolis. The work is similar. However, instead of focusing on planning for our summer classroom, we are focusing on preparing for our regional placement. This includes creating a year-long goal and academic plan, classroom management and awards system, etc. Thankfully, the hours are a lot better during Round Zero compared to Institute! It is only from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (plus dinner afterwards) this week.

Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) New Teacher Orientation, August 4-6: New teacher training for IPS. I have heard that this is a piece of cake compared to Institute.

IPS Teacher Report Day, August 10: I will be allowed to access and start preparing my classroom at John Marshall.

First Day of School, August 12: The madness begins.

The best part of Institute

Workshops are what one 2008 Indianapolis Corps Member described as “the best part of Institute.”

In TFA’s words, workshops “provide incoming corps members with the opportunity to learn valuable skills and ideas from current corps members and alumni. Staff members present a one hour and fifteen minute workshop -session on a topic that they feel passionate about.”

There are two rounds of workshops at Institute: the first round occurs during the second week and the second round occurs during the last week. In my Institute’s case, our second round happens tomorrow evening. Within each round there are two sessions of workshops corps members can attend.

It’s hard to choose which two workshops to attend because they all sound like they would help me a lot. However, since there are only two sessions during each round, time is limited and choices have to be made. During the first round, I went to two workshops that focused on teaching secondary reading since reading is what I will be teaching in Indianapolis. During tomorrow’s round, I have decided to attend the following:

Vocabulary Instruction Across the Content Area: Research tells us that the achievement gap is a vocabulary gap. Without direct instruction of essential vocabulary words, students have a hard time understanding academic content. In this workshop, you will incorporate research from McREL (Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning) and the specific steps of direct vocabulary instruction. You will have the opportunity to draft an arc of direction vocabulary instruction for your specific grade levels and content areas.

A Behaviorist Model: Don’t Make My Mistakes: Take home a concrete fool-proof behavior management system that you can use tomorrow.

My Corps Member Advisor, Liz, recommended that I attend the vocabulary workshop since one of the fundamental tasks of a Reading teacher is expanding students’ vocabulary. Also, the “Behaviorist Model” workshop is taught by Taylor Ramsey an Atlanta Institute Director. Liz and the other TFA Sutton staff couldn’t stop singing her praise today and said that this is a famous workshop that Taylor presents every year.

Another workshop that I also really wanted to attend tomorrow is:

Classroom Themes: How to create seamless sets of procedures that invest intrinsically: In this workshop, you will learn how to develop a classroom theme that allows you to encompass rules and consequences, procedures, presentation of academic progress, and recognition of excellence in one seamless system that prioritizes classroom culture and intrinsic investment.

Because there are only two session times, Liz recommended the other two workshops over this one for me. However, thankfully, the presentor, Patrick, is a Corps Member Advisor at Sutton. Thus, I should have an opportunity to meet with him later on this week and get a mini-version of his workshop.

In my opinion, workshops are so beneficial to corps members because they are focused and short. Sometimes, it seems that during our daily training sessions the information thrown at us can be general and vague. Workshops provide a unique opportunity for direct takeaways and specific application methods. I must agree with the 2008 Indianapolis Corps Member, workshops are the best thing at Institute!

Gold clipboard

The first Friday of Institute, our School Director, Lance, started the summer tradition of the “Relentless Pursuit Clipboard” at Sutton Middle School. In recognition of TFA’s vision that “one day all children will receive an excellent education,” the gold clipboard has “One Day Starts Today” written at the top. At the bottom is written “Relentless Pursuit” which is TFA-lingo for “the perseverance and pro-activity with which effective teachers drive toward their ambitious goals despite the significant challenges they face along the way.”

The idea behind the Relentless Pursuit Clipboard is that it gets passed around to those TFA Sutton staff and corps members who are working relentlessly to make TFA’s vision of “One Day…” start today. The board may be passed two times during a single day or five times. It is up to the person who has the board to determine when they pass it on. During our school meeting at the end of each day, the people who received/passed the board that day tell why they decided to pass it onto their chosen honoree.

Last week, Tom, my co-partner, passed the clipboard to me. He said that I was working relentlessly to help Jennifer improve her reading fluency by reading with her over the phone every evening. I in turn passed the board along to Blake who is part of the Math portion of our collaborative. Our students love Blake as he relates well with them and goes over and beyond the call of duty when it comes to making sure the day’s math objective has real-life applications.

The gold Relentless Pursuit Clipboard is a sacred item at Sutton and serves as a way for corps and staff members to “shout out” those who are kicking it up a notch. All of the stuff we do at Institute is suppose to give us ideas for things we can take back with us to our regions. In the case of the Relentless Pursuit Clipboard, it serves as an example of how we can honor and “shout out” our students. TFA believes in doing a lot of “shouting out” of people to honor their hard work and success.

Wakeup call

Daniel, one of my 8^th grade summer school students, is bright, charismatic and handsome. He gets along with other students and does well when he comes to school. Unfortunately, “when” is the keyword for Daniel as getting him to attend summer school has been a struggle.

Daniel missed the first week of summer school and became part of our class on Monday, June 15^th. He came regularly until Tuesday of that week when he stopped showing up. Ms. Goodman, a Sutton Middle School teacher, called the phone number on file for him the following week and spoke to Daniel’s father. The Father was surprised to hear that Daniel had not been attending school. Although he apparently does not live at Daniel’s house, he found out that Daniel had not been attending because he wasn’t able to wake up in time to catch the bus.

My co-partner, Tom, decided that not waking up in time to catch the bus was not a good excuse for Daniel to be missing summer school. So he did something about it.

The next morning, he called Daniel’s house at 7:00 AM to wake him up. He found that he was actually waking up Daniel’s mother who wasn’t too happy about the early wake up call. Tom asked to speak to Daniel to make sure he was up. He was. However, Daniel still missed the bus that morning. At least some progress was made, though: Daniel got up in time to make the bus, but just didn’t make it out to the bus stop in time.

The next morning, Tom went through the same routine. He called Daniel’s house, the Mother groggily answered the phone and passed it along to Daniel. This time, Tom made sure that Daniel was out at the bus stop ten minutes early…  And by some miracle he made it to school that morning!

Much to the Mother’s dismay, Tom has continued this wakeup call routine every morning. If he doesn’t, Daniel doesn’t come to school.

Even though Daniel began to attend school regularly, it was clear that he does not get enough sleep at night. He fell asleep almost every class. It didn’t seem like he was trying to be rude or disobedient, he was just genuinely tired. Once, I asked him to stand up in the back of the room to try to keep awake, but he fell asleep while standing!

Last Wednesday, when Tom made his routine morning call, the Mother answered the phone and said that she was giving Daniel the day off. Tom tried to explain that Daniel had already missed a lot of school and that the high stakes CRCT was less than a week away (the exam Daniel must pass in order to go to high school in the fall). Unfortunately, Tom’s explanation was to no avail. Daniel did not show up to school on Wednesday.

On Thursday, when Tom called Daniel’s house and the Mother answered, Tom said the usual good morning and asked for Daniel… But she hung up the phone. When both Tom and I tried to call back no one answered. Daniel didn’t show up again to school that day.

Tom and I are trying to give Daniel’s Mother the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she works the night shift and that is why she is too tired to make sure Daniel attends school. However, the whole situation is very frustrating. Daniel has a lot of potential, but this potential cannot be realized if he does not come to school and is unable to stay awake during class.

Observation notes

The notes my CMA , Liz, left me today after observing my lesson for about 10 minutes. Overall, I think my notes are getting increasingly more positive!

Katelyn:

Glad to see you teach again today! Here are a few great things I’m seeing:

• I love the rapport you have with your students- it’s great how you can make them feel welcome and smile.
• I’m glad you addressed Math and got them to shake that bad energy off- that’s important!
• I loved your explicit instructions, including how we will read and why that’s important: definitely putting them in the right mindset!

Here are a few quick-fixes:

• For your passages, when modeling, think about using an overhead (Leslie has transparencies!) for some of those passages (maybe just the paragraphs with definitions) and have you or your kids come up to underline the clues- I think getting them up like that could be engaging.

Great job : )

Liz

Winding down

I feel like the Atlanta Institute is beginning to wind down. However, I am afraid to say it in case my words come back to haunt me… But here are my reasonings:

• We have Friday off because of the July 4^th holiday; so this is a four-day week.
• Instead of having sessions in the morning this week, we have differentiated time to observe our fellow corps members teaching. This will be a nice break from the usual curriculum-grind and will give us an opportunity to pick up teaching tips from our peers.
• Next week, we will not be teaching on Tuesday and Wednesday because our students will be taking the CRCT exam. Thus, we will not have to prepare lesson plans for those days (hallelujah!) as we will be proctoring the exam during our normal classroom teaching hours.

Also, the Indianapolis TFA Regional staff arrived yesterday and will be staying until Tuesday. Their email announcing their visit read:

Hey Indy Corps!  We hope all is going well in Atlanta.  Assuredly, you are working relentlessly to build your skills in the classroom and laying the groundwork for becoming the solid teachers who will undoubtedly impact the lives of many students over the next two years. Please know that your regional staff is incredibly proud of the hard work you have already done and eagerly anticipates your return to Indiana. Before that, however, the Indianapolis Program Team and the Transition Team Leaders are heading to Atlanta to get a glimpse of Institute and see you in action. We will be there from June 27th- 30th.

Last night, we had an Indy Corps Social and today we had personal meetings with our Indy program directors to discuss our Institute experience and look ahead to our transition back to Indianapolis. Tomorrow and Tuesday the Indy staff will be stopping into observe us in action in our classrooms, and tomorrow we have an Indy staff-facilitated meeting to talk about our continued development upon our return to Indianapolis in two weeks.

Having the Indy staff here in Atlanta has forced me to begin to look ahead and my long-term job of teaching in Indianapolis. All of which I am very psyched about.

Dream come true

Institute has flown by so fast yet so slow… While there are many aspects of Institute that I can’t wait to be over and done with (early mornings, training sessions, etc.), there are a few (very few) things that I am going to miss. One thing I already miss is my students.

My students this summer are way far behind academically, yet they have much promise. I wish that I had more than four weeks to help catch them up and make them realize their potential.

Jennifer and I have been religiously reading nightly over the phone for at least 20 minutes. Usually, we are on the phone for longer than 20 minutes since it takes her 30 to 45 minutes to complete one chapter. But, every extra minute is helping her reading fluency improve in the short and long term.

Currently, we are reading Lost and Found, the first book in the popular Bluford High Series by Anne Schraff. The Bluford Series has been highly recommended to me by a number of teachers as teens love the boyfriend-girlfriend soap opera drama that complicates its plot. One of the TFA staff members said that her students would steal her Bluford books from her classroom, because they loved reading them so much!

As a teacher, it is always an amazing and glorious moment when you witness something you taught truly “click” for one of your students. For example, tonight while Jennifer was reading to me over the phone she suddenly stopped and exclaimed, “We’re coming to the climate!”

“The climate?” I asked.

“Yea, the climate!” Jennifer said.

“The climate?” I repeated confused.

“You know, this is the rising action and then the climate,” Jennifer said.

“Oh, the climax!” I responded.

“I bad,” Jennifer said. “The climax.”

“Yes, you’re right. We’re at the climax! It’s the can’t-stop-reading, turning point of the story,” I said excitedly.

Jennifer giggled in agreement and then continued reading.

I had just taught plot development last Thursday and was thrilled that Jennifer actually remembered what I taught in class and then applied it on her own. This is every teacher’s dream come true! Now I can sleep peacefully tonight knowing that at least one thing I taught got through to and stuck with at least one person.