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UP-Front
Stories from current STRAIGHT UP Members
* Names in the stories have been changed to protect the identities of the youth.
The Spelling Test It was Friday, the day of the spelling test. “Your last word, number 20, is ‘hill’,” I managed to squeeze out between my huge grin and nearly uncontrollable chuckling, “as in ‘Jack and Jill went up the ‘hill’.” Before I can properly proceed to explain myself, a little background information should be given. As usual, I was adoministering the weekly spelling test to my normal group of second graders. Each week the second graders are given a list of 10 words with which they practice the entire week and on which they are tested on Fridays. This week was a bit different; they had 20 words instead of the normal 10. Granted, each word should have been familiar to the students, as they were all review from previous lessons. However, for a group of academically struggling second graders with only recess, SpongeBob, and Spider-man on the brain, 20 words represented an incredibly daunting task. Thusly on Monday I gave them the list of 20 review words. As I expected, they were shocked and discouraged by the huge list, but I assured them that we would work together – my seven second graders and I – harder than ever before on spelling that week. My second graders have always looked forward to the spelling list and the following test on Friday, as scoring a hundred percent on it would net their photo in their classroom’s sacred wall of fame. Having one’s photo on this prestigious wall of fame has become a colossal motivation to these second graders, who have minimal to no such motivation in their home lives. In the beginning of the year I had given them this challenge and promise: if the entire group could do perfectly on a week’s exam, I would reward all seven of them with something grand. I never told them what that “grand” reward would be, as I believed this goal would only be achieved in a few months, when their reading and writing abilities would have grown much more than where they stand currently. For the past three months of weekly spelling tests, each week would see about two to three of my seven students scoring perfectly. It was now Friday. After a full week of extra targeted practice and workbook pages devoted to preparing them for this 20-word monster-of-a-spelling-test, I was still concerned about them. Their teacher’s and my goal was always to have them succeed, to create conditions where they were challenged yet could succeed. The previous week we had discussed cutting down the list to 10, but I decided to err on the precarious side and stayed with the original lesson’s 20. So here I was, administering the test as normal with the weight of having made a decision that could forseeably hurt my students’ motivation if they did not do well today. As I read each word to them, I watched them with great optimism write furiously. Their eager eyes shot up within two seconds of me completing each word and sample sentence; I knew then that our hard work had been fruitful! They were prepared for this test to such an extent that every second grader had written down the word ‘hill’ on their test, their twentieth and final word, before I even officially read the word to them! With a shaky hand and large-than-life grin, I corrected their spelling tests immediately as the students had their recess and saw that each and every single one of them had scored perfectly! During the test and at that very moment, in my heart I felt a sudden, powerful unnamed emotion filled with respect, confidence, and genuine cheer for my students. I have seen this reaction in teachers before; it was an honor for me to have felt it and is absolute evidence that teaching is the profession I must pursue! Now, I just need to decide how to reward the second graders “grandly” for their impressive achievement, since tomorrow is Monday and a new spelling list awaits us! |
Of all of my mentees this year, I would have to say that Eddian is my success story as of right now. The classroom in which I work is a 4-5-6 class, and Eddian is in the sixth grade. However, when it came to spelling, she was in the remedial fifth grade spelling group. As with most children, the issue was just a matter of caring about her work and trying harder. As a part of the mentoring I did with Eddian, she decided that working on her spelling was important to her. She felt it was very important to move up in her spelling group so that she could eventually be in the regular sixth grade spelling group. In order to do so, she would have to move up through two groups. We started with small goals. Eddian decided how much she would study her words each week and committed to doing so through our IDP goal setting (you can even see this documented in the monthly IDP worksheets I turned in). Each week she would study and anxiously waits for the grading of her spelling test. Most weeks she would come back to me smiling with A's on her tests. However, she had not yet moved up in her spelling group. We discussed this topic and Eddian decided to talk to her teacher about it. She was told that if she could get a few 100% spelling tests (or close to it) in the next couple of weeks than she could move up to the next group. After more goal-setting in those few weeks, and her ability to work towards and reach her goals, she came to me with great news. She had moved up to the next level in spelling groups! We were both incredibly excited. At the beginning of the year Eddian had been a student with no motivation to do well in her school work. What I have seen her do over the course of the time that I have been working with her has proven to be a great to be a great transformation. Now she works hard on her spelling. She has started caring more about her performance in other subject areas as well. At the beginning of the school year, she hated math and wanted nothing to do with it. Now she comes to me for help on her math during class time for clarification and further explanation. What I think this spelling story exemplifies is more than just increased proficiency in spelling. It illustrates a student's growth as a person who has come to care more about the work that she does, and more about herself in general too. It has been wonderful working with her! |
Goal Setting
This is a story of bridging kids across the world. From the small town of Eureka California to the even smaller, rural, impoverished village of Korphe found in the swat Valley are of Northern Pakistan. I am so grateful to my employers for encouraging and engaging this connection. It is service learning at a personal level for a dozen kids here, and a dozen kids there. Pennies for Peace.a penny buys a pencil in Pakistan and that may be all it takes to get the children there to attend school. (Times Standard, Oct. 2007) Across the miles.Eureka children write letters of friendship to youth in Swat Valley of Pakistan. (Times Standard, Feb 24, 2008) I read in the Times Standard about the Pennies for Pakistan program which asked for school participation to help raise money for schools in northern Pakistan. I recently was really greatly pained by the Burmese situation and the lack of freedom and choice that people have in some other countries. I struggle with kids at Pine Hill who take advantage of what they have and abuse the freedom that they are so lucky to enjoy daily. So.when I read about Pennies for Peace, I immediately emailed Rabia, who was organizing the penny drive, to attune my interest. I asked my supervisor if we could start a campaign to raise pennies for Pakistan and with some discussion we agreed to inspire the kids using some curriculum and allowing Rabia to start us off with an assembly about the educational state in Pakistan. We were reminded to avoid political discussion so we elaborated humanness. Rabia also offered a list of children that are willing to be pen-pals in the English language with some matching aged children. We raised pennies for a month or so and I took a tally of interested upper graders (4th-6th) who would like to write letters. Many kids thought it wad just more work to do and decided not to participate, but a select 12 or so did write letters, most in pencil on lined paper. I collected the letters a week later and they were sent off to Pakistan. Some of the children all but forgot about the project, but many of the young girls asked me daily if the letters had arrived. It took four months for the return letters to come because of the serious war like circumstances in the Pakistani area. When they arrived, Rabia notified me and we decided that the upcoming Valentines Day was a nice time to distribute the letters. So we gathered the students during their homework time and congratulated them on their patience and effort and gave them their personal packages. The Times Standard came to take photos of the reactions. The letters were in their own small envelopes written on stationary paper, many of them had stickers or photos inside and the children of Pine Hill were very happy. I saw them realize that they had been touched by someone so far away who was like them in age but had such a different story. This is where it lies now. We will meet on Monday to share the newspaper article and some tea. We will plan out our next letters and take some photos. My aspiration is that even one of these kids stays connected to a bigger world than just this countries story, and we can realize that all the people in the world have something in common, and deserve a chance to grow up strong and healthy. |
Pen Pals and Pennies
My mentees inspire me to live responsibly. I want to be a positive asset and role model in each of their lives. Openly accepting the role has changed my life and I am thankful to be given the opportunity to be of service to my community. I am ecstatic to have heard from one of my mentees that I am the reason he enjoys coming to school. The mentee told me that I am the only adult in his life that listens to him, without judgment. He will mention in our conversations words of encouragement I had passed to him. In the few months that I have been working with this mentee I have seen him open up and accept more challenges in his life. He decided to go out for basketball and he is indeed having a ball! Teachers and staff have told me that he now strolls the halls with a smile on his face. His attendance has greatly improved. He is better at understanding math and his test scores have risen. Working with my mentees has improved my quality of life. As my mentees gain confidence in life so do I because of the lessons they have taught me. As the year continues I predict more goals to be set and accomplished. All of my mentees and I are off to a great start and I have never had such a special experience as I have had with AmeriCorps. I know now that one person can make a difference. Service will always be a part of my life! What a feeling! |
Service is Part of Life
Success in general, is judged by the greatness of the accomplishment. We are successful if we can render large salaries, degrees, notoriety, and the list goes on. Well, in general we often look too generally. How did we gain that success? Too often the question is asked of where you are and not how you’ve gotten there. It is our roots, our past that has amounted to who we are. Great success cannot be gained without the little steps that we took to get there because if we counted those little steps compared to the giant leaps, the gap is wider than we could possibly imagine. Success is success. Every student struggles. They go through the shallowest of valleys to the Everest of an education. Most have had a hard time to see that they’ve come so far in their educational journey that it hinders them from envisioning their own abilities. I had a student who very much believed this. We shall call him Bob. Bob knew that in his class there were those who just got it, and there are many, and those who stared blankly at the white board. Bob was stuck in between. He would say to me the usual things, “I don’t get it. I’m just not smart enough. I CAN’T!” I understood. Bob was frustrated and very much so. To see the majority of his peers succeed where he couldn’t made him feel insufficient. His attitude towards his lack of smarts, as he thought of it was quite apathetic. But he never gave up. Just never let it defeat him. Though his words were his own poison, he persisted. I watched with great profoundness because he tried. He tried hard. He would ask for help on his math homework with tears in his eyes and an attitude resembling that of a hippopotamus. Sometimes he did break down and just cry. He had been completing math homework, language arts homework, and for the most part, all of his homework. In the beginning, there were calls home and I could tell from the look on his face, they weren’t pleasant. As the school year progressed the calls didn’t. They increased in the same exact way his comments did, slowly but less and less. Even the raising of his hand, something that I became very accustomed to, was not in its usual upright and wavy position. It became apparent that he was garnishing his independence academically. Success, he didn’t realize then and maybe not even now but it is there. It is there every minute of every day that he doesn’t raise his hand for help because he may not know the answer, but he can work out the solution. In those everyday situations that he and I got into with his work, we made strides to his success. Looking back, they seemed like routine steps towards understanding but I know that to him they were huge. Imagine not knowing how to do something on day and the next, you’re flying by ready for what awaits you. It brings a giant smile to my face, not because I feel an incredible amount of accomplishment but because it makes me happy that he no longer gets angry at me for “supposedly” not explaining things correctly. Bob is a great kid. He still has much to learn and I know that he will do fine. It is those steps we take. The building blocks we stack. If we take enough steps and stack enough blocks at the start of anything we’ve built ourselves a pretty good foundation that can withstand the test of time. If we look back there’s no reason to believe that we can’t move forward. Don’t tell Bob this because he’ll call you weird nut I know he’s just starting to dig his feet in the sand. He’s staring to root and he’s even managed to be successful at it. |
What is Success ? If you are a current Straight Up AmeriCorps Member and have a story you would like to share please contact the Training & Support Specialist:support@rcaa.org
Redwood Community Action Agency
904 G St., Eureka, CA 95501
(707) 269-2024
E-mail: americorps@rcaa.org