My inter­est in edu­ca­tion has man­i­fested itself in dif­fer­ent ways over time, from mak­ing mini books on dif­fer­ent sub­jects as a fifth grader, to writ­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing ideas as a beat reporter for The Daily Prince­ton­ian.  How­ever, serv­ing as an advi­sor to two high school girls last sum­mer and lis­ten­ing to edu­ca­tors talk about their pro­fes­sion through the cam­pus group Stu­dents for Edu­ca­tion Reform this past fall inspired me to explore teach­ing as a pos­si­ble career.

I decided that a Princetern­ship with Cit­i­zen Schools— an inno­v­a­tive after­school pro­gram help­ing stu­dents become aca­d­e­m­i­cally suc­cess­ful, with an eye towards college—would pro­vide a great oppor­tu­nity to learn about effec­tive teach­ing meth­ods and the spe­cific chal­lenges of urban edu­ca­tion.  The Princetern­ship did not dis­ap­point, and I was very thank­ful to have been able to par­tic­i­pate in the program.

DAY ONE

At 10:17 am, I boarded the Dinky with a copy of the NJ Tran­sit sched­ule on hand, along with fel­low Princetern Alli­son.  After trav­el­ing to Prince­ton Junc­tion, we hopped on another train and headed to Newark Penn Sta­tion, where we talked and ate brunch before catch­ing a bus ride to the site of Cit­i­zen Schools: Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Ele­men­tary School (K-8).

After sign­ing in at the school’s secu­rity desk, we were led upstairs by the cam­pus direc­tor, Mr. Jose, to the Cit­i­zen Schools staff office.  There we exchanged greet­ings with our host, Sylvia Mon­real ‘10, a two-year teach­ing fel­low who had grad­u­ated from Prince­ton with a degree in Pol­i­tics.  Sylvia intro­duced us to a mem­ber of the office who was prep­ping for the day’s fun team-building activ­i­ties (“flick the cup” and jelly­bean relay races) and then gave us a quick tour of the build­ing.  After­ward we went out­side and talked on the black­top, where the stu­dents were hav­ing recess.

Cit­i­zen Schools part­ners with pub­lic schools to pro­vide after­school home­work sup­port, math and lan­guage arts instruc­tion, col­lege vis­its, and appren­tice­ships for stu­dents in grades 6–8.  Sylvia explained to us that although stu­dents nor­mally elect to join the pro­gram, the Mar­tin Luther King site is unique in that stu­dent par­tic­i­pa­tion is manda­tory.  Because the school is rated as “Fail­ing,” the program’s goal has been to raise stu­dents’ test scores and grades as a “turn-around” approach.

Two years after the program’s imple­men­ta­tion, scores and grades have grad­u­ally improved.  How­ever, Cit­i­zen Schools faces a new chal­lenge because the regional super­in­ten­dent has announced that the school, along with a num­ber of other low-performing schools in Newark, will close at the end of the year and be replaced with char­ter schools.  In the face of all the uncer­tainty regard­ing the future of the school and the Newark Cit­i­zen Schools pro­gram, the teach­ing fel­lows work hard to keep the stu­dents moti­vated and focused on their work, which I find very admirable.

Launa and Cit­i­zen Schools Staff

While on the black­top, a num­ber of stu­dents intro­duced them­selves to Alli­son and me and asked us where we were from and what work we were doing.  Meet­ing the Cit­i­zen Schools staff was also great.  Although most of the fel­lows were busy prepar­ing lessons, a few talked with us about why they had joined the pro­gram and dis­cussed the chal­lenges and rewards of teach­ing.  One staff mem­ber who had majored in The­ater as an under­grad­u­ate said that he drew upon his act­ing skills fre­quently to engage stu­dents.  He also men­tioned that the stu­dents had put on a play about bul­ly­ing in line with the new bul­ly­ing laws set by the state that went very well.  Another teach­ing fel­low said that he tried to meet the stu­dents on their level—playing bas­ket­ball out­side with them on the play­ground, for example—so that he might get to know them bet­ter and earn their trust and respect.
That  after­noon, I rotated through sev­eral dif­fer­ent class­rooms man­aged by teach­ing fel­lows and recorded obser­va­tions about student-teacher inter­ac­tions and teach­ers’ pac­ing of dif­fer­ent com­po­nents of their math and Eng­lish lessons (e.g. 3-minute hook, 5-minute intro­duc­tion of new mate­r­ial, 10 min­utes of guided prac­tice, etc.).   Although sev­eral stu­dents acted out dur­ing the pro­gram, the teach­ers han­dled the mis­be­hav­iors very well and with great patience.  Over­all, I thought the first day high­lighted some of the chal­lenges edu­ca­tors might face on a day-to-day basis.

DAY TWO

When Alli­son and I arrived at Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Ele­men­tary School for our sec­ond day of the Princetern­ship, we were imme­di­ately recruited by a teach­ing fel­low to help with les­son prepa­ra­tions.  After­wards we talked with another fel­low who showed us a pro­gram he used to ana­lyze stu­dent grades and stan­dard­ized test scores and cre­ate more per­son­al­ized and effec­tive les­son plans.  For me, the day as a whole involved much read­ing and dis­cus­sion of teach­ing method­ol­ogy:  Sylvia had sent us a num­ber of resources the fel­lows used to cre­ate les­son plans, such as the book Teach Like a Cham­pion and their own Les­son Inter­nal­iza­tion Plan (I-Plan).  Both stressed the need to hold stu­dents account­able for giv­ing answers in the class­room and for teach­ers to push stu­dents to pro­vide more accu­rate expla­na­tions, in com­plete sen­tences that helped them bet­ter express their ideas.

After observ­ing teach­ers in the class­room, I had the oppor­tu­nity to sit in on two appren­tice­ships, the term Cit­i­zen Schools uses to refer to spe­cial­ized mod­ules like engi­neer­ing, film, mar­ket­ing, or dance taught by local com­mu­nity mem­bers. The first appren­tice­ship I observed involved culi­nary arts; stu­dents made home­made cook­ies from flour, egg, vanilla, oil, etc., some of them cook­ing for the very first time.  The sec­ond appren­tice­ship was engineering-based and involved mak­ing mini “Bug-bots” using clay.  Stu­dents in the appren­tice­ship con­structed a sim­ple cir­cuit to light up a pair of LEDs, which I thought was a really cre­ative way to teach prin­ci­ples of elec­tron­ics.  One of the stu­dents was very inter­ested in elec­tron­ics and told Alli­son and me that he intended to par­tic­i­pate in a local LEGO robot­ics com­pe­ti­tion offered for mid­dle school students.

DAY THREE

Although Sylvia had to take an absence from Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Ele­men­tary School on the last day of our Princetern­ship, Alli­son and I arrived on cam­pus before receiv­ing her noti­fi­ca­tion and stayed to con­tinue the day’s obser­va­tions.  After help­ing one of the pro­gram direc­tors with office tasks—creating two monthly cal­en­dars to hang on the wall—we entered into class­rooms again to shadow teachers.

While in class, I met two stu­dents who were curi­ous about where I was from and what col­lege was like.  I was happy to speak with them and answer their ques­tions before they had to begin their home­work assign­ments.  Dur­ing the les­son period, I thought that the instruc­tor did a great job of using the Socratic Method to ask stu­dents to iden­tify the mood and theme of their assigned poem and pro­vide evi­dence for their claims.  In another class­room, an instruc­tor played a sci­ence review game that involved answer­ing a ques­tion after catch­ing a kick­ball with one hand.

At the end of the class­room obser­va­tion period, I sat in on a doc­u­men­tary appren­tice­ship led by a team of stu­dents from Rut­gers.  The goal of the appren­tice­ship was for stu­dents to make a mini-documentary using Flip cam­eras about a social issue they cared about.  In past weeks, the stu­dents had decided to make a film advo­cat­ing for the con­struc­tion of a park in their neigh­bor­hood so chil­dren and teens would have some­where to play.  I thought the Rut­gers stu­dents and Cit­i­zen Schools teach­ing fel­low that assisted them did a great job prompt­ing the stu­dents to think crit­i­cally about how they might lobby for the con­struc­tion of the park as film­mak­ers.  To get the stu­dents think­ing, the instruc­tors asked ques­tions like: “Who do you want to inter­view for the film?  Who would sup­port the con­struc­tion of a park (e.g. par­ents, youth, and com­mu­nity mem­bers)?  Who would oppose it (e.g. police, com­mu­nity mem­bers against tax increases), and why?”  Over­all, the project seemed very positive—the stu­dents were learn­ing how to think crit­i­cally; gain­ing con­fi­dence and sharp­en­ing inter­per­sonal skills by learn­ing how to con­duct inter­views; gain­ing tech­no­log­i­cal lit­er­acy by learn­ing how to use a cam­era and edit video; and finally, mak­ing a direct pos­i­tive impact on their community.

Observ­ing the three stu­dent appren­tice­ships was one of the high­lights of my time at Cit­i­zen Schools. The expe­ri­ence showed me the cre­ativ­ity pos­si­ble in writ­ing and imple­ment­ing les­son plans and how such lessons could pro­duce ben­e­fits for stu­dents beyond the class­room.  Com­ing out of the Princetern­ship, I think I would like to explore oppor­tu­ni­ties for two-year teach­ing fel­low­ships post-graduation.  I am very thank­ful for Sylvia Mon­real, Cit­i­zen Schools, and the Princetern­ship admin­is­tra­tors for mak­ing this learn­ing expe­ri­ence possible.