Mr. McDonald: A Dedicated Educator

By Lucas Holmes, corps member serving on the PTC team 

Corps member helping a student sound out a work. Photo by Elliot Haney | 2013

“You have two minutes to focus,” Mr. McDonald tells his students in the hallway before entering the classroom. Consistent and clear expectations are one of the keys to Mr. McDonald’s success as an English as a second language (ESL) teacher at Dearborn School.

With a large percentage of ESL students attending Dearborn School, Mr. McDonald fills a significant and much needed role for the school. McDonald recognizes this, working tirelessly to improve the English of these English language learners.

Having the privilege to serve alongside Mr. McDonald this school year, I am fortunate to get to know him and his students. Patience, positivity, and warmth emanate from Mr. McDonald in the classroom, and students respond with an equal amount of respect and focused energy. Although Mr. McDonald’s students face a unique challenge compared to their native English-speaking peers, Mr. McDonald sees their potential to learn as equal, if not greater.

Mr. McDonald’s faith in his students was evident at the beginning of the year when Mr. McDonald worked with them to set an achievable goal of growth for their reading. Instead of setting a goal based on experience from teaching previous years, Mr. McDonald asked the students how much they wanted to grow by the end of the year and let the students decide on the number of words per minute (WPM) by which they wanted to improve.

The students eagerly set their own ambitious goals. With some guidance, Mr. McDonald and the students agreed on the goal of growing 100 WPM by the end of the year; a goal that Mr. McDonald knew would be a challenge to achieve, but certainly possible if the class worked extremely hard. With the students’ goal in mind, Mr. McDonald crafted expectations and lessons to help students meet their goal, requiring 20 minutes of reading per night.

To keep students accountable, Mr. McDonald visually displays the WPM of each student for each beginning and end of month to track the progress of his students. The growth of the class is apparent, but the display also shows that growth does not come easily.

Even though the rate of growth may not be on pace for the end goal of 100 WPM, this should not be a reason for discouragement. Students are encouraged by the fact that they set high expectations for themselves; it means they were willing to risk failure for the sake of pushing themselves to grow as much as they can. Regardless of whether or not the students reach their goal at the end of year, surely Mr. McDonald and I will be proud of the progress that they make.

About the author:
Lucas Holmes is a 2013-2014 corps member serving on the PTC team at Dearborn School in Roxbury. 

Change Is Good

By Cat Nwachukwu, corps member serving on the CSX team

Photo by Elliot Haney | 2013

I met Cristan* in my first days at The English High School. I noticed him right away because he was very quiet, but always smiling. After having a few classes with him, I invited him to come to extended day, our after school homework help club. He nodded in agreement and he came by the following afternoon.

During extended day, I found out that his family recently immigrated to the United States, and that he spoke very little English. Despite the language barrier, we were able to complete all of his homework assignments. When he left that afternoon, he promised me that he would be back tomorrow.

The next day, I walked in to find Cristan sitting at the same table that we had sat at the day prior, homework out and ready to work. He waved me over enthusiastically and I joined him. That afternoon as we worked, I began looking at his grades on different assignments, and I noticed that he was failing. I thought it might be because of his limited English skills, and I didn’t immediately know what to do. As if my mind were being read, a teacher walked in asking to speak with Cristan about his class placement. They spoke in his native language, and then Cristan packed up his stuff and headed down to the office. The teacher helped Cristan enroll in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes.

I saw Cristan a few days later at lunch and he was not wearing his usual smile. I asked him what was wrong and he pushed a piece of paper toward me. It was an entirely new schedule. I tried to explain to him that these classes would be better for him, but to be honest, I was sad; I would no longer have class with Cristan and I wouldn’t be able see his smiling face every morning. I fought through my own sadness to continue explaining the benefits of his new schedule, and I made him promise me that he would come to extended day every day after school. He cheered up a bit and quietly gave an approving nod.

For a few weeks, Cristan was very busy with sports after school, so I did not see him at extended day, and the only time I could catch up with him was during lunch. I would ask how his new classes were going, and he would shrug and say that they were going well. During report card conferencing, one of my teammates runs to me in excitement saying that Cristan had all A’s and B’s in his new classes. I was overjoyed! When I saw him at lunch the next day, I congratulated him for such a great accomplishment. He turned to me and said, “You were right Ms. Cat. The new classes are much better. Thank you.”

Though it may seem small, checking in with Cristan every day and being a consistent support despite his changing schedule helped Cristan to feel comfortable enough at school to perform to his full potential. That’s what corps members do; we make students feel comfortable enough to succeed, whether that support is from a distance, as with Cristan, or more direct. I don’t know what Cristan’s academic outcomes would have been if I weren’t there to support him, but I am glad I am there to be that extra support in his journey to success.

*Name changed to protect student privacy

About the author:
Cat Nwachukwu is a 2013-2014 corps member serving on the CSX team at The English High School in Jamaica Plain. 

The “Fun” in Learning

By Hannah Smith

Photo by Elliot Haney | 2013

Every morning the 4^th grade at Condon Elementary School begins with an enrichment block, a 45-minute period meant to supplement the lessons that students are learning in their homerooms. Enrichment allows students to focus on a specific area, which may be anything from literacy to social studies. In the classroom in which I serve, the students are divided into two small groups. My partner teacher runs a lesson for her group and I run the lesson for mine. The three students in my group are learning English as a second language.

This time is one of my favorite parts of my daily schedule. My lessons are tailored specifically to where these students are in their progress of learning English. The three of them are very enthusiastic to participate. During enrichment, I work with my students on English vocabulary and recognizing phonetics and patterns of spelling. For example, in one lesson I might teach my student how the “short u” sound works in English and provide them with vocabulary such as “umbrella,” “luck,” “run,” etc. It is rewarding when they grasp the content and create their own connections.

During one of these lessons, I was teaching my group how to spell “fun” when Julia* suddenly jotted down another word she heard before and showed it to me: “Funny,” she read as she happily pronounced it correctly. We had not directly discussed “funny” in the lesson, but she was able to absorbed the behavior of “short u” as well as “y” and correctly formulated a related English word in writing!

Students are very proud of such accomplishments and small daily achievements are the perfect encouragement and always worth recognition. Another student in my group, Bryson*, is the newest to learning English. He spends much of his time in class unsure of what is going on with the lessons and Bryson often feels a bit frustrated. As a result, he is very quiet and hesitant to participate. During our enrichment block, however, Bryson is eager and confident. He likes to innovate; when we are using flashcards to learn vocabulary he decided he wanted to also arrange them in attempt to form sentences.

[The Condon team was recently featured in The Boston Globe. Click to read more about our service in Boston Public School!]

I find that enrichment block is a great confidence booster. I think that being in a small group setting where everyone is closer in academic progress is more comfortable for shyer students. They enjoy working together and with me on a one-on-one basis and they often become more animated. This allows me to see a little bit more of their personality and style as academic learners.

*Names changed to protect students’ privacy.

About the author:
Hannah Smith is a 2013-2014 corps member serving at Condon Elementary School in Boston.