TFA Chicago Day 3

Hello Again,

Today moved at a much slower pace. As opposed to yesterday which started off with a bang at the community assembly, Alex handed Grant and I his keys when we walked in the door and gave us directions to Home Depot. Our project for the day was to build a bookshelf so students could leave their chemistry notebooks in the classroom. Initially we were a little disappointed. We wanted to interact with students and observe the classroom dynamic, not build a bookshelf out of scrap wood in the back room. After a few minutes I came back to reality. We are in Chicago on an alternative break to volunteer with Teach For America. We should be more than willing to do whatever helps the teacher out. As a matter of fact, we even talked about this type of situation in class before the trip. In due course, we bought the necessary materials and built the bookshelf. The lack of good wood and a drill made this a character building experience to say the least.

The other task Grant and I worked on today was building a bank of chemistry problems that Mr. Rock can use throughout the year. At Urban Prep, there are specific outcomes lined out that the students are expected to master. A long list of these outcomes was handed to the students and us yesterday. 80% mastery of these outcomes is the goal, and the best way to learn chemistry is practice-in come Grant and I. We sifted through the class textbook searching for these outcomes and problems that correlate and subsequently came up with five problems for each. What surprised me was the depth of material that these students are expected to learn. Maybe my memory has failed me, but I don’t recall deeply exploring all of the topics they have cover in my high school chemistry, and I went to a reputable school. The content more resembled the CHEM 184 and 188 at KU. This gave me a new surge in confidence in the ability of these students and Mr. Rock. At the same time, it alarmed me a little bit. At Urban Prep, if a student fails one class, he has to do the entire year over again. I can imagine that students that fail a couple of classes and get their graduations delayed by years could get dejected, demotviated and end up dropping out. Hopefully Mr. Rock can engage all of these students enough to make them pass and move on.

Oh and by the way, it’s good to see that Mr. Rock brought a little bit of historic Allen Fieldhouse with him to Urban Prep. Grant and I had the honors of hanging the amazing banner yesterday morning. While many of the kids stared up at it completely confused, many also knew what it meant. In his two and a half years at the school, Mr. Rock has successfully recruited many kids to be part of Jayhawk nation.

Until Tomorrow,

Jason