Friday- Chicago- TFA

I was sad when reality hit me this morning that it was my last full day in Chicago. It has gone so fast! I slept in a little this morning reluctant to venture into the inevitable cold. However, when we left for the metro it wasn’t bad and the sun was out. We have been at Ariel so long that many of the children recognize us. When we arrived little children called out names and ran up for hugs. It was absolutely precious.

I was assigned to a first grade classroom all morning and we had a lot of fun reading and making bookmarks. They requested that I make a bookmark too so I got a blue paper and made one with my sorority letters and Ms. Kaity on the back. It was really fun watching and helping them and they absolutely loved that I was doing what they were doing. They kept asking why I had to leave and didn’t understand that I wasn’t from Chicago. Before I went to lunch I went to Ms. Beach’s room to meet with her but she wasn’t there so I hung out with the eighth grade class in there. They were really fun and quite mature for their age. I helped with their African country posters and we talked about college and futures. In Chicago the high schools are selective like our colleges are. The students have to apply to the good ones or they will be stuck at poorly kept and sketchy public high schools. That is a lot of pressure on a thirteen year old kid.

While in the homeroom with seventh graders following the eighth grade class there was a young man who was very rude to me. The first one to have been so all week. He decided that he wanted to do whatever he wished and when I asked very nicely several times for him to take a seat and get out his book he decided to talk back and say insulting things. I will admit I was quite shocked to hear such sass from a student for a simple request but I kept my composure and got him to do his work with significant effort. During lunch Ms. Beach and I brought laptops to the classroom and while returning saw a young boy throw his books and take off. We chased after as he started throwing punches at another young man. Breaking up the fight was no easy task since both sides were intent upon winning and eighth grade boys are bigger than both of us.

With a fight behind us Ms. Beach and I spent the afternoon teaching Investments to seventh graders and a class of Kindergartners. The seventh graders had an online activity to do but all of them neglected to complete it considering they were preoccupied with music and chatting. The Kindergarteners by contrast loved the activity planned for them. They drew pictures of needs and wants and sang a song about saving. I was a little relieved when the school day was over. Finally I didn’t have to worry about riding the metro and going to school early. Now I am focused completely on the KU game tonight and enjoying my last night in the windy city. Tomorrow I dread the eleven hour bus ride back but it will be more fun now that our whole group is close.

-Kaitlynn Nelson

Tuesday- Chicago TFA

My day started much as yesterday had, waking up at six a.m. to put on dress clothes and commute. The church we are staying in goes from warm to freezing overnight it seems and it was really hard to leave the cozy confines of my sleeping bag. Once I did I put on a purple sweater dress and black flats with stockings so I would be warm in the rainy drizzle outside. I put on a jacket and a raincoat and headed out to McDonalds to have internet to post Monday’s blog. Lauren and Paige met me and we headed to our morning ride on the Red line. The trip was much easier today knowing what to expect and I recognized a few (rather cute) faces on the metro. While waiting for our bus transfer all I could focus on was how Chicago would be much more enjoyable if the piercing wind would die down.
When I arrived at Ariel Community Academy this morning I was assigned to Mrs. Hoover’s room. She teaches English to the fourth and fifth graders. She asked me to go over the fifth grade students reading journals with them in the morning. Reading through their work I noticed an immense amount of slang and tense misusage. Basic grammar fell victim to mistakes like insert the word “like” instead of “said” or the confusion between their, there, and they’re. I tried to correct their work by asking them what they thought it should say and most of the time they realized their mistakes and we would talk about why it was confusing. The book they had written the journals for was called Color Me Darker and was an interesting book about a traumatized young lady who refused to speak for a long time. They were about to start another book about jazz musicians and the Harlem renaissance.
I went across the hall for the next period to Mr. Nanavati’s science room. They were studying the basics of chemistry and the atom. Once they had reviewed they took a quiz and I graded four classes quizzes. It seemed either the students knew what was going on and were on top of it or they hadn’t done the homework or paid attention and failed it. Sadly, most of them had failed. When class was over I had a chance to talk with the teacher about the students and he said you just had to do the best you can and try to reach as many as possible because it was impossible to get them all. This made me really sad to think that it was allowed for some students to just fall behind because they couldn’t be reached. We talked about the Alternative Break program and why we were volunteering here. Most people seem really interested in our program and what we do. When talking about the university and my major though I was offended by the stereotype that blondes can’t be smart. Apparently blondes can’t do neurobiology, who knew? I suppose just like many stereotypes, especially those that face these students, I will have to work hard to overcome the stereotype set against me.
I had lunch with the secretaries in the teacher’s lounge. They are really funny and told me stories about their high school lunch rooms and having huge unhealthy recipes for cookies and cakes. It certainly made me crave some delicious cookies. After lunch I went back to Mrs. Hoover’s room for the final two periods. I worked with a girl the first period on some makeup work and a group of eight on a dictionary worksheet and quiz. We finished as the bell was about to ring and headed back to class. Our group met up and headed back to the church. We are having some yummy soft tacos for dinner that we are making together here in the church kitchen.
-Kaitlynn Nelson

Monday- Chicago

After a Jayhawk victory over Illinois the group returned to the church where we are staying, showered, and feel quickly to sleep. Sleep passed far too quickly as six a.m. rolled around and I had to drag myself out of my warm sleeping bag and get ready for the first day of school. I slipped into my black and white polka-dot dress, black heels and felt prepared for anything that would come my way. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

We hopped on the red line and after a certain stop the entire demographic of the train changed. The neighborhoods quickly became more run down and I found myself entering a completely different world from what I grew up in. I had officially left behind cattle and tall grass prairie for hip-hop, concrete, and city mentality. As we got off the bus I became a little nervous in the neighborhood but was put at ease by the smiling faces of the school children that we saw as we walked to the school. The security guard at the entrance awkwardly stared at us as we entered Ariel Community Academy but directed us to the office to wait. After ten minutes of waiting we decided to go find our teachers on our own. The school is a K-8 school but is strangely also attached to a charter school. Both have school uniforms and the Ariel kids wore blue collared shirts and khaki pants. My coordinator Ms. Beach was incredibly friendly and a Teach for America teacher who worked hard to set me up and schedule to help with different classrooms for the week.

School started in the auditorium where the school said the pledge of allegiance followed by their school pledge then each teacher took their homeroom off. My first task was to help the Kindergarten students with the school-wide recycling program. The program is a way for them to get funding for books and technology in exchange for helping the environment. Every item had to be scanned for the competition between schools and from what I could tell Ariel had a lot of movement behind their program considering it took me all morning to finish. I was relieved to wash my hands and head to the teacher’s lounge for lunch. The teachers’ lounge was so out of place at Ariel. The school itself was older and painted random bright colors but the lounge was a soothing nature theme far from the noisy hallway. The refrigerator had leaves stenciled on it, the walls were a crisp white, white lounge chairs edged the room with forest green accents. It was a relaxing environment with ambience lighting and helped me prepare for what I was about to encounter.

After lunch I was assigned to Ms. Lewensky’s Spanish class to help teach the fifth graders to salsa for an upcoming play. I had a blast with the Spanish music and excited children. Afterwards I chatted with her about the Spanish program at Ariel. She said the funding had been cut so to keep her position she had to teach math and that the language class was not able to be graded. I was really sad to hear that since I really love Spanish and think it is important to prepare kids for an interconnected world with other languages. I went back to Ms. Beach’s room and helped make permission forms for the school-wide financial field trips. I loved that they saw the importance of financial education in low-income neighborhoods. If they can save efficiently they can better their situations. The final class period of the day was close to beginning when a fight broke out in the hallway. The students went running and teachers broke it up. Ironically the class then had a scheduled “Calm Classroom” exercise. The exercise occurs several times during the day and consists of deep breathing and stretching to relieve stress and calm the students down before class so they are more manageable for the teachers. The day concluded with a game of financial soccer where the students answered questions to score points in Ms. Beach’s homeroom.

It was funny how quickly the students know you and who you are, perhaps because I was the only fair skinned blonde woman in the entire school. As we were walking back to the bus stop I heard a little girl yell out “Bye Miss Kaity! See you tomorrow!” It really felt good to know they knew who I was. The bus ride back was quick and once the group was together we went out for pizza at Lou Malnati’s to taste real Chicago deep dish. It was incredibly filling so we walked it off with a trip to Wrigley Stadium which was much farther than expected. It was quite a chilly night but the stadium was glowing and we had to take several pictures in front of it. We found the nearest “L” station and returned to the church where we played Apples to Apples, which if you have not played you certainly need to because it is hilarious with a large group. That was the end of our night and we showered and made lunch for tomorrow. Tomorrow I am going to check out other classrooms in Ariel and I hope it is just as entertaining, loud, and exciting as today was.

-Kaitlynn Nelson

Saturday Sunday Chicago TFA

Our adventure began leaving Kansas City at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Most of the bus ride to Chicago was spent asleep or munching on snacks. Ten hours after leaving we arrived in Chicago at Union Station with our bags. After hailing a taxi to take us to the church we are staying at we immediately laid out our things and fell into a deep sleep. That sleep wouldn’t last long though, 6:30 a.m. came much too early as I headed off to take a shower and get dressed in my KU garb to explore Chicago. We had to leave by eight every morning so after a quick briefing on the church’s policies we headed off to find our respective schools. Before we all split into respective schools we stopped for a quick breakfast at a local McDonald’s. My cinnamon roll was delicious but I really had to pee after drinking a huge iced tea. It was in this McDonald’s that I had my first encounter with door codes on public bathrooms. I inquired about them and was told they had to use that system to prevent loitering, homeless, and non-customers from abusing their services. It certainly made me feel far from home.

The metro system here is incredibly confusing at first glance and walking up and down stairs to switch trains and buses was exhausting. Brandon and I were going to volunteer at the same school until we discovered they would be having parent teacher conferences but went in search of it anyway. An hour into our trip we were soaked by rain and freezing at a metro station waiting on a bus. After the second bus that was the correct route drove by us splashing us with water and refusing to stop we gave up in retreat to return to the group for lunch. To keep ourselves entertained Brandon and I went "subway surfing" or to those of you who haven't tried it we were trying to stand up the entire distance of the subway without holding on. Much trickier than it sounds. As everyone found their way back to our Starbucks meeting spot we heard interesting encounters and funny stories about trying to find schools and getting lost. We found ourselves having lunch in Quodoba, a delicious Mexican restaurant that is quite similar to Chipotle. We decided to head back to the church to warm up a little and get extra layers to block the chilly wind Chicago is famous for. Everyone agreed we could use a shopping break and we headed off to the shopping district. We went through store after store, everything from Nike to Ghirardelli to Vera Bradley. We got a picture (shown here) in front of the very first UNOS pizza place. With sore feet and slightly emptier wallets we headed off to a sports bar and grill called John Barleycorns for some giant hamburgers and to watch our Jayhawks play the University of Illinois Illini. The game started out with a whopping 16-6 lead for the Jayhawks but the Illini gained momentum to pick up some points to keep the game interesting. As we sit in the restaurant we found another KU couple but even more Illinois fans unfortuneately. The Rock Chalk chant is about to shake the foundation of this building as everyone gets more and more excited. It’s amazing how anywhere you go you will find a Jayhawk and that inevitable KU spirit. ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK GO KU! I am going to divert my attention back to the last ten minutes of the game before I go crazy here. Wish us luck fellow hawks. More to come tomorrow.