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On to the next middle or high school! I'm a History Day mentor through the Minnesota Historical Society and will be working with immigrant students at Wellstone International High School in Minneapolis. I hope to continue building my classroom techniques and especially pedagogy related to culturally-diverse student bodies as that is the type of high school I hope to end up in.

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Overall, my time at North was an interesting experience. Because I had taught my own class of 8th graders of the summer and have worked with students before, I felt pretty comfortable jumping right in and helping out my teacher. But I often felt like I wasn't learning enough from him. He was still very new to the profession and he and I differed on teaching styles; still, I tried my best to learn from the experience. The connections that I made with students gave me the sense that my time this semester was, indeed, well spent.

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I honestly don't know of any support systems within the school that the students can use.  However, I do know that there are quite a few guidance counselors and the teachers double as educators as well as someone a student can lean on for emotional and academic success.  The small class sizes, I know, are supposed to be one of the biggest support systems for education at North.  But often I didn't see the size of the class as an advantage, especially if most of the kids still weren't paying attention to the teacher/lesson.

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BUT THAT'S JUST GOOD TEACHING AND SOCIAL/POLITICAL CONTEXT

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BUT THAT'S JUST GOOD TEACHING AND SOCIAL/POLITICAL CONTEXT

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They morning after Donald Trump was elected, Mr. L and the teacher (Mrs. Baumann) got together with their classes to discuss the election and the students' futures. These were young, black, mostly low-income kids who went from having a president that looked like them to having a president that sees them more as criminal than citizens. Instead of acting like it was just another day, these two teachers allowed the students to ask questions and just react to the situation. The world can be an isolating place, but North High sure as heck wouldn't be one. This group discussion reminds me of Gloria Ladson-Billing's article "But That's Just Good Teaching!" Mr. L already incorporated being culturally relevant for his students by allowing them to play their music as they worked on their writing in class; I saw this as a continuing of culturally relevant pedagogy by allowing the students to embrace their identify as African Americans and talk about their concerns and questions about the future. Instead of trying to be colorblind to the situation, Mr. L and Mrs. Baumann embraced the election as a way exploring the different identities of the students.  A teacher should always take into account who his/her students are and do their utmost to give them more than a cookie-cutter educational experience.

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In general, I found my time in Mr. L's classroom to not always be a satisfying experience.  He himself had been in the classroom only two years and still has a lot to learn in terms of classroom management.  I found him to be very lax and therefore not have as much control as I thought necessary for a classroom -- but we all differ in our styles. What I did find incredibly helpful was his total commitment to his students.

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I'm not suggesting that every teach need a student like T in order to show them they've chosen the right career, but my work with T continually reassured me that teaching was still something I would like to do. Whenever I thought I wasn't making a difference or just being a nuisance to the kids, T or other students who'd I talk to or help would remind me of the slight importance I was in their English classroom. They acknowledged my presence and accepted my help when they could have just brushed me off completely.

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ALSO REAL LIFE FOOTAGE OF ME TRYING TO GET T MOTIVATED

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ALSO REAL LIFE FOOTAGE OF ME TRYING TO GET T MOTIVATED

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"T, I need you to finish this story and hand it in to Mr. L because I really want to know how Daniel Lee's (her main character) life turns out."

"Sym, why do you care? Why do you think I can do this?"

I was honestly shocked.  Could she not see how good her writing was once she actually started?

"Of course you can do this.  You already have the story in your head, you just told it to me.  You just gotta pick up the pen and start writing."

Two weeks later when I was back at North, T came up to me and handed me her story she had turned in.  Not only was I relieved she actually turned in the assignment, but the writing she did without me was just as good as the writing we had worked on together.  T's lack of enthusiasm for anything and my overenthusiasm (even for a subject I wasn't going to teach) created a good connection between us.

For the rest of my time at North, I was her go-to for help and I always knew when I needed to annoy her in order for her to actually do work. I think T is like a lot of high school students -- they have the brains, but no motivation. When the class read Malcom X's autobiography later on in the semester, I was right there next to T motivating her to read and take notes. She probably found my over-abundance of caring exhaustive but also endearing.  On my last day at North, I gave her my email in case she ever needed help or wanted advice.  A couple days later I got an email from her talking about how she had tested really well on the writing portion of her IEP (Individualized Education Program) and no longer needed one. I don't take credit for her success at all, but I do hope that she saw how much I cared that she succeed in school and in life in general.

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There was one student at North that I grew to have a pretty decent relationship with; we'll call her T. I first worked with T when they were assigned to people watch for one day then choose a person and create a narrative about that person's life. T wasn't interested in the class, never participated, and never talked to other students. She was really just there. So I decided to work with her on her people watching narrative. Boy, could she write; she was more creative than I could ever hope to be. She naturally created this back story of this kid she had watched for one hour in McDonald's. The problem? She didn't want to write the story. But she could explain it to me perfectly. My job was to have her write it all down. It was a bit of a struggle, but over the course of two days, we had written everything but the ending. I wasn't able to come in the next week before the story was due, so I gave T an ultimatum of sorts.

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I often came in on days in which the students had free time to work on whichever type of writing they were working on that week. Mr. L was often busy with his own thoughts that in order for me to be of any help, I had to take initiative myself. Most days I would just walk up to students who looked like they were struggling, or even more fun walk up to students who looked like they could not care less about the assignment.  Once I chose a student, we worked together to create an outline or perhaps go over that type of writing they were focusing on that week in order for that student to be successful and turn in the final assignment that was expected of them at the end of the week.

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Wednesdays I would help during 1st hour (8 am WOO!!), & Fridays I would help 1st through 3rd.  Getting students to show up to 1st hour on time was like pulling teeth and because my teacher, Mr. Lindqvist, wasn't a dentist, he let his small class of 12 slowly trickle in with school breakfast in their hands.  This is when it hit me; although North sounded like an amazing success story (it is!), but it is still full of tired kids who don't necessarily wish to be there.  This awakening brought me back to Earth and ready to actually help these students with their writing and reading skills.

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The story Mr. Bloomquist told DirecTrack about North is one of a school beating all odds and expectations.  North used to have a dismal graduation rate until a firm from New York turned the school around; with more funding and smaller class sizes, North's graduation rates are on the rise.  Now, I wasn't expecting a full on Ayers-style classroom in which it seems the teacher is like a child-whisperer who knows just how to connect with every student (Ayers 80). Ayers classroom always seemed like a utopia that teachers only dream of. But I did imagine small classrooms full of fully engaged students and teachers with electric lesson plans every day.

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African Americans/black students make up 86.5% of North.  While the building is large, the school itself only has about 300 students. 87% of North's students are on free and reduced lunch and 30% are considered special ed.  This final fact was one of the most striking things for me to notice; my teacher's 2nd hour special ed class nearly tripled in size of his normal 12 student classes.

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Simply known as North, North Community High School is a public school in the Minneapolis Public School District. Although my concentration in DirecTrack is social studies, I helped out in a 10th grade English classroom.