Final Day At Classic City

Yesterday was my last day at Classic City, and it was a little bittersweet. I worked with Kevin yesterday and I'm glad my last day got to be with the first student I worked with at Classic City. He was pretty distracted and it took a long time to get him to sit down at the computer and start working. We went through some of his USATest Prep tests and worked through some of the questions he missed. He sat patiently and listened, but I could tell he just wasn't really feeling sitting there haha (which is ok, sometimes sitting in front of the computer just doesn't sound awesome.) We had a nice time chatting about what he wants to do after he graduates. He wasn't aware that it was my last day, and I think he may have been a little sad that we weren't going to get to hang out and work together anymore.

After 14 hours at Classic City High School, I feel like I've really learned a lot. I've that a new and different kind of patience is required when working with older children as opposed to working with early childhood students. You have to find a balance between treating your student with respect and maintaining the role as the adult and the teacher, you have to find the balance between mentor and instructor, friend and critic. I know as I grow as a teacher these balances will be easier to find and will vary from student to student.

I walked into Classic City with a lot of assumptions. Assumptions about the students, the program, and the teachers. Probably the most important thing I am walking away with is the knowledge that most of my assumptions were wrong. I assumed, that in a struggling county such as Clarke county, that the teachers wouldn't care, the students would be unable to learn, and the facilities would be severely lacking in resources. I was wrong on all counts. All of the students I worked with were incredibly smart, but I feel like they have been treated like they aren't smart for too long. Many of the students had incredibly intelligent thought processes but lacked the skills to take their thoughts and transfer them to paper. The teacher I worked with I feel truly cared about her students. She gave assignments of her own to supplement the online work the students were required to do and I feel like she really cared about each of her students. Classic City had a totally different feel than I was imagining. I anticipated it being a highly structured environment where the teachers wet very authoritative, but it was a much more relaxed atmosphere where the students and teachers worked together much more than fought against each other.

My time at Classic City taught me to never underestimate a student, and to never--for whatever reason--give up on a student. I would love to go back to classic city and continue to mentor more students there. It has been a very interesting and rewarding semester!

Disappointing Day

My latest trip to Classic City left me feeling a little down after the rewarding trips I've recently had. I worked with "Brenden" again this week. He is such a nice kid and I have no problem getting him to sit down and do his work. He remains focused throughout the class period and I feel like he really puts in a solid amount of effort. He is very respectful and just an overall nice student to work with.

"Brenden" was beginning his final paper on The Crucible this week, the same assignment that I worked with Kevin and Samuel with last week. It was different working with Kevin though because his paper was almost complete and he just needed my help editing it. Brenden was just starting and really need my help with coming up with a thesis for his paper. I was already at a disadvantage because I have never read The Crucible so I didn't know any of the characters or plot he was talking about. I frantically tried to look up some basic information on my phone so I could try and point him in the right direction. He went and asked his teacher for some advice and when he came back she had written some things down that helped me establish a basic thesis with Brenden. After that, he spent the rest of my time there writing... and never asked me another question.

I wish I had been able to help him more with his paper, but I was at a loss because I was so unfamiliar with the topic. He had also missed a lot of class so he wasn't even all that familiar with the play so I couldn't get  much information from him. I found it slightly odd that the students never actually read the play they were writing a paper about. Apparently they just watched the movie and read the Sparknotes for it. I'm not sure how much they really got out of "reading" the play, but I can't judge because I am only there once a week so I don't get to see how much work actually goes in to covering certain material.

Happy Day!!!

Great news from my most recent trip to Classic City....

Drum roll....

KEVIN IS GRADUATING IN MAY!!!!!!

It was another awesome trip to Classic City. Kevin has been super motivated these last few times, probably because the finish line is so close for him. He was finishing his final paper on The Crucible. After he finished that up, he went and got more work to finish up without me having to ask him! Go Kevin! I peer edited his paper with him, and helped him attach it to an email so he could submit it to his teacher.

Even Samuel got stuff done this trip! It was tough getting him to get going (he would much rather joke around with college students, weird huh ;) ). But once he got settled in, he really got a good amount done on the beginning of his Crucible paper as well. I think he's developing a little crush on one of the other girls mentoring at the same time. It's hilarious, (of course she is doing a fantastic job at keeping things totally professional). He really wants to get work done for her though so whatever works I suppose! I feel like the students we have been working with have been really getting closer to us and look forward to our help. My trips to Classic City have been a lot more rewarding lately and I am really appreciating it.

Another Student!

I worked with "Brenden" on one of my recent trips to Classic City. I really liked working with him because I got to really help him to get his assignment done. He was very respectful, well spoken, and quiet. I really enjoyed working with "Brenden" and would love to work with him in the future.

"Brenden" and I worked on his assignments for Arthur Miller's The Crucible. I didn't read The Crucible when I was in high school so this was great for me because I got to learn too! We used two programs while doing this assignment. The first was GAVS, which stands for Georgia Virtual School. This website had a breakdown of the play, various assignments, questions, and activities to help the students better understand the play. The second program we used was very interesting and I had never seen it before. It was called Padlet. 

       "Padlet is an Internet application that allows people to express their thoughts on a common topic easily. It works like an online sheet of paper where people can put any content (e.g. images, videos, documents, text) anywhere on the page, together with anyone, from any device." 

Each student was to create a padlet page and that their teacher could later look at and grade their work. Padlet was really easy to create and work with, it was a great resource for me to learn about. "Brenden" had to research different aspects of the play, including  a background on the author, information about Senator Joseph McCarthy, and the Salem Witch Trials. The questions he had to answer were on GAVS, accompanied by links that contained the answers. "Brenden" is a slow typer, so we worked together to find the answers on the various webpages, and then he would dictate his answer to me while I typed them into his Padlet. We were able to get the entire assignment done! He worked really hard, and his answers were well thought out. 


For the final portion of his assignment, we did a virtual witch hunt, to better understand how the Salem Witch Trials worked. The website was very interactive. You were given a name, and then various prompts and you chose your answers and saw what happened to you at your trial. Unfortunately, "Brenden" was found to be a witch and was sentenced to be hung! We liked working through the prompts together and had a few laughs over our fate. It was a great day at Classic City and I look forward to working with "Brenden" again.  

Fun Day With Students

This past trip to Classic City was really fun! I worked with several male students trying to catch up on work that they had missed or were behind on. These boys all in the same room trying to get things done was just kind of funny! The minute someone got on track, was the minute another one made some hilarious joke. It was even hard for me to stay on track because they were all so funny together. Fortunately, Kevin got a lot of work done! I think he knew that he really needed to get caught up :)

It was a really great time in Classic City, I feel like the students really opened up to me, respected me enough to get work done, but wanted to talk to me and we all laughed. It was the first time where the environment felt really relaxed and it seemed like the students and I were totally at ease.

Toward the end of my time at Classic City during this trip, I started asking some of the students the questions that I had really been wanting to ask.

• Do a lot of the students here have children of their own?
• Are there a lot of drugs?
• How does the "open campus" work?

• "Steven" told me that not all that many students had children of their own, and then they rattled off maybe 3 names of students that they knew who had children. To me, even that was a large number, but it was actually a lot less than I anticipated the answer to be after what I had been told about the Athens area and the schools here.
• The students were very open in telling me about the drug use that occurs within the student body. They told me that there wasn't all that much hardcore drug use, but that marijuana use was a fairly common activity for the students. They had a very relaxed attitude toward the use of marijuana which surprised me. In the town where I grew up, there was a much higher stigma when it came to any kind of drug use.
• I was very interested in understanding how the idea of "open campus" worked. The students told me that they were technically not allowed to just leave whenever they felt like it, but no one stops them if they do. They are allowed to leave between classes if they want to, which is when many of the students go outside to smoke cigarettes. I think this is a good method to keep students from feeling "trapped" at school, but I think it could be easily abused.  

I was very appreciative of the students opening up to me, and I am glad we all had a good time! I was also very proud of "Kevin" for resisting the distraction of his friends and continuing to work. He got a lot done and and continued to work (for a few minutes at least) after I went to sign out.