A Brief Week

The weather in New Hampshire at the beginning of the week reflected the general mood of the students at Seabrook Middle School: heavy, slow and sleepy. Summer is making its approach and it's being heralded by terrible humidity. Still, I am feeling really good about May and the next few months in general so I was happy to be back with the students. Unfortunately, throughout the day I didn't feel like I was making a big impact on my students. I felt adrift, like I was detached from my service in most classes. I think part of this was caused by the structure of some of the classes. In FACS, students were simply typing up handwritten work. The students in English class listened to the first few pages of Flowers for Algernon on CD. There wasn't an easy way for me to interact with them, other than nudging them to wake up.

My daily victory came in social studies. The teacher assigned students a project that they'll be working on for the next few days. They have to come up with a topic, formulate a question and use articles to answer it in a three to five minute speech. One student was struggling to come up with a topic. He found an interesting article about Blackwater and their involvement in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians. He considered doing his speech using that article but thought it would only last ten seconds. I thought of the Right Question Project and used the title of the article as a prompt. His first question was, "Why did they do it?" I prodded him – "What other questions could you ask?" He came up with, "Who is Blackwater?" He knew they were a military company, which led him to ask, "Why is a military company in Iraq?" They may seem like simple questions, but getting the answers to them will help him flesh out his speech. I talked with the teacher after class about using it with the entire class. He agreed that it's a neat concept and will think about a good future topic to use it with. Victories!

It was a short week for me – I went out of town Thursday and Friday so I was only at school for three days. The feelings of uselessness returned on Tuesday and Wednesday – I didn't think I was really helping. With only a few weeks left in school, my ability to help improve students' grades is limited. These thoughts and feelings have caused me to shift my approach to in-school service. In a few months, my students will become high school freshman, a role that many are concerned about. I plan on spending the next five weeks continuing to model positive behavior and supporting my students as they look forward to next year. I want them to head off into the wild blue yonder confident that they will be able to be successful. They need to know it will be difficult, but they can do it. If I can support them in the shift, I've done a great job.

P.S. This is just a reminder that City Year is in the running to win $250,000 from Pepsi as part of their Pepsi Refresh project. If you would like to support City Year, all it takes is a few clicks and 26 seconds. Remember, every 26 seconds a student drops out of school. Let's take that time to end that crisis. Vote for City Year here.