Don't Pump the Brakes

As I alluded to in my last post , I once again had the opportunity to chaperone the annual student council trip to visit different colleges in the northeast. This year, the students wanted to visit Penn State University and the University of Scranton  (where my sister is currently a junior), so that is exactly the two colleges we went to go see.  In front of the Old Main building at PSU After leaving before the crack of dawn on Thursday, we arrived at Penn State at around 10:00am, giving us plenty of time to visit the bookstore and eat lunch before our campus tour at noon. Having spent a few days at Florida State University , I was expecting Penn State to feel more like a city than a college, but I was (admit-tingly) very surprised at how Penn State managed to have a small-school vibe.  The East Side High School Student Council at Penn State University  Thursday night was one of my favorite moments of the trip. After teaching students how to play some card games, I expl

These last few months have been busy, very fast, and quite exciting. Between subbing summer classes, working on random projects and tutoring SAT prep sessions, I honestly feel that I started school a month early this year! In August, I found out that I would officially be changing rooms, and was going to be teaching in room 301. I was really excited to get a new classroom. Just like my experience last year , it took a lot of cleaning to get my room in order. After spending about two full weeks cleaning up the room and making everything look nice for the first day of school, I was ready to start year two at East Side.   Panorama of Room 301 before the first day of school On my first day of school, I tried out an activity my Vice Principal told me he used to use about working hard and achieving goals. In essence, I had a student jump as high as they could, and mark their jump with a marker. After leading a conversation with the class, I got a chair, and taped a $5 bill an inch abo

When one becomes a teacher, there is an often told piece of advice given from veteran educators that encourages a new teacher to “not smile before Christmas.” The idea is that, if you show your students that you are happy and having fun, you are indirectly showing them that you are “weak.” I thought long and hard about what I was going to be like as a teacher, especially since I was very young and had little experience. Sure, I student taught during college and worked in Harlem the summer leading up to my first year, but this was different. For the first time, I was on my own.  Teaching an algebra class earlier in the year And there I was, in September, standing by myself in front of a class of freshman ready to learn. I was a recent college graduate, I just moved to Newark a few weeks prior, and, at 21 years old, was the youngest member of the faculty by over a year. As an extremely young, new and inexperienced teacher, it was initially a challenge to gain the respe

In recent times, in seems as though everyone talks about how complex and controversial education reform is and how many elements need to evolve for schools to become better. While many solutions put forward push for massive institutional change and heavy financial commitments, I ask, "How about a simple solution?"  This post is exactly that.  Let's start with an even simpler question: What science classes did you take in high school, and in what order? If you are with the overwhelming majority of people who graduated high school in the last few decades, you undoubtedly took Biology first, then Chemistry, followed by Physics, if you chose to take it. Most high schools in America, whether an elite private school in Westchester or a public SIG school in Chicago, offer these three science classes in that order. Perhaps the better question is, why do schools sequence science classes in the way that they do? Most people, myself included, would pro

This past April was one hell of a month. After surviving my first official graduate school residency at Seton Hall during the first weekend, I was looking forward to going to Boston with the East Side High School Student Council on the 11 th and 12 th . This was my third overnight trip with the group, and, having had  incredibly moving experiences the first two times around, I was extremely excited about this one. With the East Side High School Student Council at Harvard University In two days, we were able to visit four schools: Harvard , Boston College , Northeastern and Boston University . As was the case with previous trips, it was such an empowering weekend. Although I had a lot of great dialogue with the students during our two day venture throughout Boston, three specific conversations stick out: The first was at BC, when we were eating lunch. I was sitting across from a senior who recently moved to the United States from Ecuador seven months ago. We talk