Impact

Dispatch from The Philadelphia Urban Seminar

Editor's Note: Rachel Mountz just completed her freshman year at Penn State University Park, studying elementary education. This summer, she is one of roughly four dozen Penn State students taking Curriculum and Instruction 295 A, Philadelphia Urban Seminar, with Dan Thompson, assistant professor of education in the College of Education. Thompson's students have joined hundreds of students from universities throughout Pennsylvania at LaSalle University in north Philadelphia for a two-week, intensive experience observing and teaching in urban schools. Mountz is chronicling her experiences for Penn State Live and the Newswires. For photos, visit http://live.psu.edu/stilllife/1707 online.
 

The last two days:

On Wednesday we started the class by making Chinese paper lanterns. The kids had to practice drawing fancy designs such as animals or flowers that might be found on Chinese art and then they drew and colored their design on a big piece of construction paper. Urban Seminar Tip #18: Get involved with the activities that the kids are doing, it will make it more fun for them and for you. Once we finished the lanterns we put tissue paper and ribbon in them and hung them all up.

By this week not only was I much more familiar with the school and how everything works, I also was getting to know a lot more people participating in the seminar. Urban Seminar Tip #19: Get to know the people in your van, if they’re in the same school as you they will probably know a few of the same kids you know. Plus the van rides are so much more fun if you know the people you’re with.

Wednesday was our field trip day again, and this time my group went to the Constitution Center. Even though I had already seen it before it had been a few years and I thought it would be cool to go back and see it again. We left the schools at 2 p.m., right after I finished my math lesson on metric measurement, and I was a little nostalgic knowing that I only had one day left in the classroom. That evening I went out with a couple other girls to buy little treats to give to the kids on Thursday.

Thursday I finished up my metric lesson and we had an ice cream party after lunch. It was the cutest thing ever -- all the kids got to have seconds on ice cream, one kid who had been switched out of our class got to come back and hang out for a little while, and most of the class was dancing in the middle of the room where we had cleared the desks away for them. They danced to everything from High School Musical to Chris Brown. They kept trying to get me to dance with them, saying “Come on Miss, dance with us Ms. M!” So finally I gave in and we all did the Electric Slide.

When it came time for dismissal at the end of the day I gave each kid a treat bag with a pencil, two erasers, stickers and a lollipop inside and I asked them each for a smile and a hug in return. Some of them were so shy all of a sudden, and others didn’t want to let go. I promised them that I’d come back and visit next year, and I intend to keep that promise. It’s nice to be back home but I really wish I could have spent more time in room 300 of Fairhill Elementary.

For the full series, visit http://live.psu.edu/story/30949 online. For photos, visit http://live.psu.edu/stilllife/1707 online.

 


 

Days 8 and 9: Back in the schools

By now I'm finding that I'm really getting into a routine. I'm pretty surprised that I have been able to wake up every day at 6:30 and that I'm not rushing out the door at the last minute. Urban Seminar Tip #16: Eat a good breakfast every day.

I've figured out the school's routine too. The school day seems to fly by because we have our morning activities and then our prep period and lunch all together in the middle of the day, and then just over an hour of lessons in the afternoon. I didn't teach any big lessons on Monday or Tuesday because I was working mainly with my small reading group and Ms. Stevens was teaching a writing unit.

Monday afternoon when we got back from the schools we all got together to hear a parent panel. There were two parents with kids in the Philadelphia School District and later another parent joined them, and we got the opportunity to ask them questions about the schools and hear a parent's point of view on "the issues." I eventually thought of a question that I thought was a good one to ask and I got to ask it as the last question. It was something like this:

"I have noticed that discipline in the elementary school I'm in is much harsher than discipline in the suburban schools I went to. I understand why this is necessary but some of the teachers say things to the kids that our teachers could never say to us and that I find inappropriate and unnecessary. (I gave examples of some of the things I have heard teachers say to students.) Where do you as a parent draw the line with what you think is appropriate for a teacher to say to or in front of a student?"

The answers they gave me were exactly what I was hoping for. They said that they would definitely not stand for a teacher saying anything even the least bit degrading to their child or to any other child. I went up to the panel once the assembly was over and talked to two of the parents for a few minutes and it was great to find that they agreed with what I thought about how to discipline in schools.

On Tuesday we heard from a new teacher panel. There were five young teachers who all had been a part of the Urban Seminar in years past and we heard from them about their experiences teaching in urban schools. The floor was opened for questions and through answering our questions, the panel was able to give us some very good advice and tell us some very entertaining stories at the same time. Urban Seminar Tip #17: Don't rule out an urban school until you've tried it. I'm definitely considering teaching in a more urban area after I graduate.

Penn State students also had forums to attend on both Monday and Tuesday nights. We broke up into smaller groups to discuss what was going on in our classrooms and our schools. My group definitely had some good conversation. It's interesting to hear how other students' experiences differ from mine and how a lot of us are experiencing the same things.

 


 

Days Six and Seven: The weekend

I am not a morning person, and on Friday I was glad to hear that we didn't have to be out at the vans until 8:45 Saturday morning to go to our service projects. I got up at 7 though to go for a little run around the track. Urban Seminar Tip #13: If there are things you like to do like run or play sports, you can do all that here. My roommate and I go running around the track, and we saw a bunch of people the other day playing whiffle ball.

The seminar students were split by university into two groups for the community service day. One group went to do a project at Norris Square, and my group went to the Germantown Beacon Center. We sat in the Germantown High School auditorium for a short introduction and then split into groups and got right to work. Some groups did a community clean up, some groups planted flowers, and my group was an anti-graffiti group. We walked to a park about five blocks away and painted over graffiti. It was a big park, but we got a basketball court, benches, bleacher-like steps, and some playground equipment painted. Urban Seminar Tips #14 & 15: Keep a positive attitude. The people who live near the park came to tell us how grateful they were that we were painting for them, so just remember that this is for other people and any amount of work you can do is helping them out. Also, wear old clothes.

We had a lunch/carnival for the kids after a morning of working. Once we ate we did activities including face-painting and playing games with a lot of the local kids. I played a pretty intense game of soccer with a couple of younger kids. After the carnival all the seminar students went back into the auditorium and watched a documentary on violence in the city. It was a video put together with the intent of educating the city's youth on the effects of gun violence. We were the first audience to view the film so we got to give the director our feedback on it. I thought it was a good film.

Germantown High School is a beacon school -- it is not only a school it is a community center too. They put a lot of focus on keeping students off the streets by giving them alternative options such as spending time on writing songs and producing videos. In the morning before we started our community service projects we got to see one of the videos that some students had put together, and in the afternoon they treated us to a live performance. All I could think of was how much talent those students had and how cool it was that they were so into writing these songs and performing them for people.

Sunday was a "free day" where everyone got to pick a trip to go on. Some people went to the Phillies game, some went to South Street and others to the King of Prussia Plaza to shop. There also was an option to go to Penn's Landing and some other Philadelphia landmarks. It was just a day to relax and do whatever we wanted.

 


 

Friday, Day Five in the schools

Today was a half day in the schools because the teachers were having an in-service session. In the morning we worked on helping three of the girls write their final poems for the poetry contest. The class did another compare-and-contrast reading activity. They went over vocabulary words and sentences and looked at an example paragraph with Ms. Morris. One thing I noticed that I really like is that she is constantly complimenting the kids. For instance if they give a correct answer she will say, "You're so smart and intelligent!"

The seminar students got to decide if we wanted to stay for the meetings or leave at noon when the kids were dismissed. It might have been interesting to stay for the meetings just to see more of the "behind the scenes" teacher stuff but we decided to head back to campus early and just take the afternoon to relax. I found a nail salon only a half mile away so one of the girls and I went and got our nails done and stopped for cheese steaks on our way back. Urban Seminar Tip #11: Anywhere you go, take a friend.

Friday night was amazing. We went to a Spanish-speaking part of town for what is called the Puerto Rican Experience. We went into a church and got to sample different Puerto Rican foods (they had some delicious cream cheese tuna fish that I want to try making, and the cherry pie also was wonderful). We watched a short documentary on the gardens they have planted in the neighborhood and how they are such a good influence for the community. Then we got to see Bomba dancers. The Bomba is a traditional dance that originated in Africa and they have big flowing skirts that they move around a lot. The music they dance to is all percussion, and the main drummer has to think ahead and try and follow what the dancer is doing. It's kind of like a contest to see if the drummer can keep up with the dancer. It's kind of hard to describe, but they actually let some of us come up on stage and try it. I was one of the people who got to go up and dance, and it was a lot of fun. We followed what the dancers did at first, and then they had us each dance individually with the drums going. It was amazing and a great way to start the weekend. Urban Seminar Tip #12: Go out on a limb and try stuff like dancing the Bomba in front of everyone. We were so glad we did it afterwards and it was just a fun time we will always remember.

 


 

Thursday, Day Four in the schools

We had no idea that we would be welcomed into the schools this morning by many loud, enthusiastic students with balloons cheering us on and telling us how much we rock. I had no idea why we were being cheered on and welcomed with such excitement, but I found out that every year the students of Fairhill Elementary have a teacher appreciation day and that none of the faculty knows when it will be so it's a nice surprise for everyone. The students seemed really enthusiastic for all of us urban seminar students, telling us, "You rock! You are the future!" It was the best way I could imagine to start my day.

Every morning the principal talks over the intercom and gives the school a little pep talk. Fairhill's principal is an award-winning principal, and he roams the school every day checking into classrooms and always has a smile on his face. He seems to be really glad that the urban seminar students are here helping out.

Class started out today with Ms. Morris continuing a math lesson. The kids all have notebooks that they use for math and they copy down and work through multiplication problems in them almost every day. Once the math lesson was over, Ms. Stevens and I took our poetry kids aside and worked more on poems with them. There are three kids we are going to work with closely tomorrow to fine-tune their poems to enter in the contest. Since the theme of the contest is "Celebrating Me" I wrote a little sample poem -- it only took me five minutes -- to help the kids start out. It went like this:

Celebrating Ms. M.
I celebrate me every day
I celebrate me in every way
I like working in my school
I think my blonde hair is cool
At home I help my mom
The dishes don't take long
After school I like to play
Any sport, any way
I celebrate me every day
I celebrate me in every way

Urban Seminar Tip #9: Using a lot of examples will help the kids figure out a good starting point for their projects. They may take some time to put together but it is worth the effort. This little poem I wrote helped demonstrate rhyming and repetition, two things we thought were important for the kids to try and incorporate into their poems.

I worked again with my small reading group and also played tic-tac-toe with a kid who was put in Ms. Morris's class for the morning. Sometimes the teachers switch the kids around to different classes for the morning or the afternoon. I've found that most of the kids will work wonderfully with you one-on-one even when they are disruptive in a large classroom environment. Again at lunchtime Ms. Morris brought some kids up to the classroom to have some quite time-out of the day, and I noticed again how much she really does care about these kids. One of them, Kenny, wanted to dance with Ms. Morris so they went into the middle of the room, danced for a minute or two (it was adorable, I wish I could have taken a picture of it) and he had the biggest smile on his face. Then it was time for his time-out.

I got to meet the superintendent today when I was down in the computer lab for a few minutes. Like Principal Koch, Mr. Ortiz seemed very proud of the schools he runs and was very glad to have the urban seminar students in the schools.

After lunch the plan was to go to the library, but a pipe had burst there so it was closed. Ms. Morris started a math lesson and then turned it over to me. I finished the probability lesson I had started on Tuesday by doing problems from the book and making up some of my own, just to make sure that they understood it all. Ms. Morris took over again once I had finished so I decided to clean up the room a little bit then I looked through a few of the many books that she has for the kids. I'm going to ask her if there will be an opportunity for me to read aloud to the kids one day. I picked two books that I thought looked really good.

Once we arrived back to campus we had another forum speaker, Mr. Carter, who takes care of everything in the schools except for the academics. He talked about how tough urban teaching is and how you have to have your heart in it. He told us a few interesting stories to inspire us and give us confidence for when we enter the teaching world. I took a page and a half of notes on what he said because I thought he was a very good speaker, and the girls I was sitting with agreed. Urban Seminar Tip #10: Keep an open mind. A lot of people might not look forward to hearing someone speak for an hour but the speakers are really interesting, can relate to you and have a lot of good information to share.

The last activity of the night was a meeting with all the other Penn State students after dinner. We talked about things we had observed in the classroom and discussed the qualities of a good teacher. Afterwards, my roommate and I went for another run and then relaxed in the dorm. I'm looking forward to this weekend; tomorrow school ends at noon for an in-service day, in the evening we are doing what they call the Puerto Rican Experience (No one is quite sure what this is but I'll let you know) and on Saturday we have a community service project in the city. Again, you'll hear more on that after the project.

 


 

Wednesday, Day Three in the schools

By our third day in the schools I felt like I was really getting into the swing of things. I had learned most of the kids' names and had gotten to know them a little better. They all greeted me, "Hi Miss!" or, "Good morning Ms. M!"

Their day started with some journal writing. They had to compare and contrast winter and summer. I was trying to help some of the kids who didn't seem as motivated to write. Urban Seminar Tip #7: Get the kids to talk to you. They would love to tell you about their lives or what they do for fun. Once they talk to you for a minute, tell them to write down what they just told you. It's sometimes easier to have a conversation first than it is to just start writing.

I worked on more Scholastic News stuff with the kids I worked with yesterday and also got started planning a poetry unit. There is going to be a poetry contest in the district with the theme "Celebrating Me," so we picked 10 kids to work on writing poems. I am working with Ms. Morris' co-teacher on this, Ms. Stevens. We started by just asking the kids questions about themselves, like what they like about themselves or what they do that is special or important at school and home. Then we started doing name poems with them. My example was:

M aybe I can teach you how to write a poem
S ome of you will write wonderful poems

M ay I take you to lunch one day?

Tomorrow I am going to finish up working with the class on probability math problems.

All the urban seminar students had to leave the schools at 2 p.m. today to go on field trips. Half the students went to the Philadelphia Art Museum and half went to the Constitution Center. My group went to the art museum, and next Wednesday we will be switching. I thought the art museum was really cool. I liked looking at the really old paintings, the silver and gold dishes and the sculptures. I met a girl named Jenna from Kutztown and we walked around the museum together. Urban Seminar Tip #8: Meet as many people as you can from different universities. It's really cool to talk about the different classes you take and to just get to know them. We had about an hour and a half to explore the museum and then we all went into the auditorium to listen to a speaker who talked about how art and education are connected and how art can compliment education.

There were no group meetings tonight, so we were done early for the day. Everyone was very tired, and I even dozed off for a few minutes in the dorm while I was waiting for my roommate to get back. But since we had the afternoon free we decided to go for a run around the track. Other people ordered food for dinner and we were all going to watch a movie together … before we all decided to call it an early night. So, movie night is reserved for another night. Everyone is trying to get more sleep tonight because we all know that early mornings are hard for college students.
 


 

Tuesday, Day Two in the schools

As soon as I got to the school today, Ms. Morris gave me some work to do. I had to plan a Scholastic News lesson (remember those little pamphlets we read in elementary school?) and look over a math lesson. It was only my second day in the school, but I really felt like part of the classroom and I was excited to start teaching.

I worked with five kids on the Scholastic News lesson where we talked about Abraham Lincoln and learned some vocabulary from the article. I found it pretty easy to work with just five kids. They probably felt like they were getting more individual attention and they seemed more willing to work. Urban Seminar Tip #4: Be patient. Try your best to motivate the kids to learn the topic. If you're enthusiastic about it chances are they will be too, and eventually they will "get" it.

One thing I have noticed at least in the school I'm in is how much more they incorporate technology into learning than when I was a kid. The kids have many opportunities to use computers in the classroom and Ms. Morris taught a lesson about fractions through her computer on the projector. I think this engages the kids more because they are familiar with computers and it's an easy way for them to help themselves learn independently.

After lunch I taught my first lesson. I was so excited. Even though I'm used to being in front of a group of kids I had never taught anything before. I had been preparing my math lesson all morning and when the time came I was ready to teach probability. I had been thinking of how I would explain what "random" was and how sometimes the probability of picking one color out of a bag was more or less than that of picking another color.

I wasn't too worried about the explanation part of my lesson or the activities I was going to incorporate into it. What I was really thinking about was how I was going to manage the class while effectively teaching them what they needed to know. I began the lesson by telling them my rules. Urban Seminar Tip #5: Communicate very clearly with the kids. If they know what you expect from them before you start teaching it won't be as difficult to manage the classroom.

Teaching the lesson was so much fun. I could not believe that Ms. Morris had me teaching a math lesson on my second day, but I was excited and ready. The lesson took about 30 minutes. We started with rolling a die and talking about the chances of rolling each number. (There is a 1/6 chance you will roll any number on the die, in case you were wondering.) We talked about how there was an equal chance of rolling any number and why this is true. Then we went on to an activity that required participation from the whole class. I had a number of different colored blocks in a bag and I had each of the students (plus myself and Ms. Morris) pick one block out of the bag and put it back in. We recorded the colors and then the kids took guesses on how many blocks were in the bag and how many of each color there were. Once I had told them the number of blocks, we started talking about how an object can have more or less probability of being chosen. We went on to do three problems in the book as a class. It took a few tries and a lot of visual aids for the kids to really get the concept, but it was so rewarding when the majority of them started getting the right answers.

Once we got back to the campus we had another forum where one of the professors from Kutztown University talked to us about her experiences growing up in Philadelphia. Dinner was next, and after dinner all the Penn State students got together and we had our own little forum. Our professors put together an activity for us where we had to share some of the observations we had made in the classrooms over the past two days and they divided them up into two categories: observations and judgments. We had a discussion on the differences between observations and judgments and discussed our specific observations with each other. It's great to talk to other people about their experiences in the schools. Everyone has a different experience to share and a story to tell. Our professors asked us to read two short articles from our reading manual and to write down observations on our teachers.

The rest of the night was free for us to do what we wanted, so two other girls and I went to Wal-Mart with one of our professors. Urban Seminar Tip #6: Bring non-perishables for breakfasts and lunches. Eat a full breakfast and lunch, because being hungry in the classroom is no fun.

 


 

Monday, Day One in the schools

The last 24 hours have been so hectic. Since there are so many people on the seminar this year, getting everyone organized was a little more difficult than in past years. Or so I've heard. There was some confusion early on and I wasn't actually assigned to a school like everyone else was. But I was able to talk to my professor and he got me into a school by the end of the night.

We are taking vans to and from the schools so that we can all stay together, and this morning was also very hectic with everyone trying to find their van and leave for the schools. But I knew that all the craziness would be worth it once I got into the schools and into my classroom.

I arrived at Fairhill Elementary shortly after 8:30. Urban Seminar Tip #1: Get plenty of rest each night -- early mornings aren't always easy and yawning in class doesn't set a very good example for the students. We got a quick tour of the school (which is pretty big, grade levels K-6 are all in one building) and then I met the teacher I had been assigned to work with, Ms. Morris. I could tell right away that we would get along. She seemed like the type of teacher that could take control the room with a snap. As the day went on, I found that she was a lot like me when it came to running a classroom. We both are tough and have high expectations, but that's only because we know the kids need to be pushed so that they will succeed.

The first thing that Ms. Morris had me do was to staple student work to a bulletin board in the hallway. That was cool because I got to see what kind of work the students do. They are just finishing up a unit on China, so they had a lot of writing and crafts on that. When I got back into the classroom, there were some kids doing math or other activities on the computers and others were reading books in pairs. I liked that she had them reading in pairs because it was fun to see the kids help each other out and work as a team.

I noticed that two of the boys were having trouble getting focused, so I asked them if they would read a book to me. They got out Shel Silverstein's Where The Sidewalk Ends and helped each other read the funniest poems from it while I stood by, listening and helping them when they needed it.

Ms. Morris then gathered all the kids back up into one big group and did an activity with hula hoops to show Venn Diagrams.

I sat in the back of the class and observed the lesson, taking notes on what I liked about it. Urban Seminar Tip #2: If you are thinking about becoming a teacher, try to work as much as you can with other teachers. Observe how they teach and find your own style. I really liked that Ms. Morris would tell the class that she was looking for a Prize Person. She'd say she sees a lot of "super kids" but that she's looking for "the best."

I loved my first day in the urban schools. They were different in many ways from the suburban schools that I'm used to being in, but there also were a lot of similarities. One difference is that almost the entire population of the school I am in is African-American or Hispanic. All the closet doors are locked and you even need a key to get into the teacher bathrooms. The classrooms are smaller than what I'm used to and they also are a lot louder. But it's still a school. There is teaching going on and there is learning going on. Not all schools are the same, but I'm glad I get to be on this urban experience if only for two weeks. Urban Seminar Tip #3: Keep an open mind. Nothing good can come from a closed mind, but with an open mind you never know what you'll experience.

For more photos from Rachel Mountz's experience with the Philadelphia Urban Seminar, click on her picture above. Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

Last Updated January 12, 2011