Archive for September, 2011

Week three: Money doesn’t mean anything if you’re doing something you love

At the beginning of the week, one of my teammates Dylan told the Markham team in morning circle that he worked 68 hours the prior week at school and in the office editing his “why I serve” video montage (which is now up on the CYLA blog site!)

Although my week was not that long, it definitely gave me a reality check that the long 5 a.m.-6:30 p.m. days we’re reeling in don’t get tiring because we’re doing something we love. Sure, I have bags under my eyes every day. My kids have even told me that “Ms. Liz, you don’t get enough sleep” or “Ms. Liz, you need to wear make-up” (another reality check: kids speak their minds and are blunt. They don’t lie. When they tell me I look like I’m dying, they’re right). I think one of my roommates once calculated how much money we’re making by the hour based on our stipend and it was something like $2.00. But that doesn’t even come to mind when I think about my job. I could be doing something right now that would pay somewhat well and enough that I could start saving my money for when I’m actually an adult, but why would I want to do that if I don’t enjoy the work I’m doing and feel that it’s meaningful? That’s what I love about this program – people think and reason like me when it comes to issues such as no money but long, energy-sucking hours.

The hours at Markham are going by quickly, but getting more stressful day-by-day. My students have become a lot more comfortable with the teachers and I and have started acting up. Last week the teachers and I had to address bullying problems with some of our students. I forgot how cruel middle school was. One of the biggest challenges some corps members face at Markham is working on behavior with students (I could go into detail about how and what, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to write about other corps member’s classroom experiences without their permission).

My biggest challenge I’ve come to realize, on the other hand, is not behavior management, but simply teaching the rules of English. I have been keeping a list of words my kids mix up and spell wrong a lot – for example, “wut” for what, “sum” for some, “wus” for was, “kip” for keep, “pict” for picked and the ongoing issue of past vs. present tense like “we puted” instead of “we put.” Some of the words – as well as those words with i’s and e’s – will be teachable because of repetition. My teammates gave me a couple of ideas of how to tutor my students in English since they’re all at different levels and aren’t all having trouble with the same concepts. One idea is to make each student an individual notebook and write down the words and sentences that they are spelling wrong or writing wrong so they can keep the book as a reference and learn visually. I think it’s a great idea and I’m going to implement it soon. There’s one student that I have yet to figure out how I am going to teach him. Sometimes I can’t even understand what he is writing in his quick writes. I copied a paragraph he wrote: “We went to is grandpa or to is dog amd by frient was criayng because we de not so the dog amd we went go to sestpe is was ni her room amd my frient was help to se is dog.” This particular student can read very well and always participates in class, but his reading and conversational English skills do not translate to his written skills. He is basing his English writing off of probably rules of his native language – Tagalog- and I have no idea where to even start with him. I’m still brainstorming how to get through to him besides repetition and helping him spell. I know I’ll eventually find a solution because English is my strong point.

This week’s tally with the math v. Warden race is 5 to 1 (yes, 6th grade math is STILL winning). I started tutoring my kids in math by going over two problems they got wrong on their homework, which I think was somewhat successful (even though sometimes my kids had to correct me on my multiplication … oops). One of my students got so sad that he got most of his homework wrong and wouldn’t believe me when I told him he was simplifying exponents wrong (for 3 to the 4th power he was just multiplying 3×4 instead of 3x3x3x3). Quote on quote he said, “But I can’t get my problems wrong. I want to go to a good college. I should be getting these right.” I told him that getting math problems wrong isn’t going to keep him away from college and that I barely got through middle school math and still went to a good college. I’ve got to realize though that he’s only 11 and very stubborn; he would not look me in the eyes when he was working on his problems because he was so mad at himself. I just kept repeating over and over again, “I’m here to help you and work with you this year. Remember that. I want you to do well, so when I tell you you got a problem wrong it’s only for the best.” I hope he’s not as stubborn when I try to work with him again, but he’s such a confident kid that I know he’s ironically going to be one of the hardest to correct. Maybe next week I’ll gain some more points on 6th grade math. This isn’t a friendly competition.

This weekend two of my best friends from home, Jess and Kelsey, came to LA to just get out of the bay for a little bit. It was great to catch up and even recap middle school memories (especially about how many fights I got in with teachers, how many times I was in the principal’s office, what teachers I made cry, etc.) I told my English teacher that believe it or not I was a little brat in middle school and hopefully can use my experiences to share with my students and make them realize that they need to behave. I really didn’t start behaving until sophomore year in high school, which was almost too late to start caring about school and go to college. Looking back, if I had stayed on the same path I was in middle school and the beginning of high school (stubborn, big attitude), I probably wouldn’t have graduated from a good college. So students, listen up and shape up like I did.

Jess and Kelsey helped me pick out a backpack for school. We were picking between a bunch of different colors, but I decided on a light blue one to copy my light blue one from middle school. Everyone signed their names on my middle school backpack (which I still have at my mother’s house!) so I’m thinking to re-live that and get my team to sign my backpack. It’s middle school all over again!

This weekend I was also given the opportunity to represent CYLA on good.is and write about my experiences as a corps member. Although I haven’t heard of the website until the communications brand manager told me about it, I looked through previous corps members posts and got really excited. People actually read this site (and retweet it!) and as much as I will be writing for the CYLA blog, it’s readership is definitely less than this site and now my experiences can go national. I can’t wait to tell my team about it on Monday because that means my team and Markham Middle School will be read about on a larger context, which will hopefully inspire others. My team is awesome and I see this as not just an opportunity for me to get another byline online, but as a team opportunity to let others really see the work we’re doing.

Our after-school program starts on Monday and I am working with my teammate Charlotte because my team leaders split up teams based on math-shy and math-friendly people (amen to that!)

I am submitting my Peace Corps application this week!! It’s finally done (thank you Kelly, Amy and Damien for being recommendations, thank you Jamey for editing/going over the application with me).

More to come in a week.

Our City Year room is almost decorated. This is my favorite part of the room, our status update wall:

Why I serve with AmeriCorps and City Year: Marissa Jackson

By Liz Warden

During the fall semester of her senior year, Marissa Jackson started thinking about what she wanted to do after graduating from Hope College. She knew she wasn’t ready to go to graduate school. Nor was she ready to sit in a cubicle and stare at a computer screen all day. She knew she wanted to do something hands-on. She wanted to serve.

After some research, she found the AmeriCorps website, which led her to City Year. The program immediately sparked her interest because it gave her the opportunity to act as a tutor, mentor, and role model and keep working with elementary school to middle school-aged children. It also gave her security that she would have a job after college, while many of her friends were unsure of their plans.

“The stipend and benefits I get through AmeriCorps and City Year are greatly appreciated in this time,” Jackson noted, speaking of the current economic downturn. “I know a lot of my peers were struggling to find employment after graduation, so I am really grateful that this opportunity was available.”
Jackson was one of the many corps members who applied at the first deadline and told City Year she’d serve at any location in the country.

“Wherever the need is, I’ll go,” she said, thinking back on her application process.

“I’ll be there.”

And one year later, she leaves her house every morning as the sun rises over the silver-lined skyscraper backdrop of Downtown L.A. and turns from sky from night blue to periwinkle, to catch the Metro Light Rail to get to Markham Middle School in Watts by 7 a.m.

Most people would refer to this as waking up at the crack of dawn. But to Jackson it means always getting to school on time to lead morning greetings and games. Every day, she walks through the campus in her yellow bomber, pressed khakis and Timberland boots chanting at the top of her lungs.

“Hey, you’re here, that’s great!” she yells, stomps her feet, claps her hands and moves around campus. At one point, a student comes up to her, gives her a double high five, starts to dance with her and chimes in on the cheer. Jackson beams.

Jackson comes from a strong background in social work and education. She plans to stay on that track after her year of service. Jackson reasoned a year with City Year could develop her behavioral management and tutoring skills with children and help her grow professionally.

“I just feel like it’s a job…as well as it being service,” she said.

“We have to show up every day, we get things done, we have goals and things we need to do and we are serving the needs of students and communities and schools.”

With her first month serving in 7th grade English and Math at Markham almost under her belt, Jackson has already started developing relationships with her students that can only grow stronger. Some have already cried and opened up to her about why they’re not motivated to do well in school and why they skip class.

“City Year allows them to know each day that they have someone there to support and care for them, not just academically, but life in general,” she said.

Using stories from her past experience that have made her a stronger person, she can sometimes bridge the age-gap and relate to her students. As a first generation college graduate who was constantly stressed by her parents to always pursue education, she wants to show her students that anything is possible.

“If you put your mind to it, if you have your goals set out, you can get to that point and you can say, ‘Hey, I graduated from high school and college,” she said.

Jackson believes that if students find a passion – possibly through City Year’s after school programs and clubs – it can help them become more involved in school because they have something to look forward to.

Dance, for Jackson, is her passion. She’s been dancing – ballet, jazz, modern, hip-hop and tap – since she was 2-years-old.

“When I’m dancing, that’s all I’m worried about. It’s 110 percent of me just dancing,” she said.

“I can’t put the feeling into words.”

She plans on starting a dance club at Markham that explores and practices different dance styles, the history of dance and even tour a studio or performance in Los Angeles.

Outside of the classroom, Jackson hopes City Year can find student’s interests – whether it be dance or not – to make them feel the same way she feels when she’s up on stage, twirling, spinning and jumping to a beat.

“It’s just smaller steps cede to that bigger goal they want to get to.”

Week one: My kids already stole my heart

WEEK ONE IS DONE!

Our first day at Markham was Wednesday, which was the first day of school for most of LAUSD. Marissa, Daniel and I got up at 5:15 a.m. and took the light rail at 6:15 a.m. We got really lucky with public transportation because a light rail stop is a 15 minute walk from our house and goes directly to our school in about 30 minutes. It’s really convenient and ironically less stressful than driving in early morning 110 traffic (amen to not having to pay for gas $$$).

The Markham team was a little nervous to go into the school full force with an early morning power greeting. For those of you not in City Year and have no idea what that means, it’s basically just having all the corps members line up alongside the front gate and chant, clap and do roll-calls. One of them is G-O-O-D-M-O-R-I-N-G, good morning, hey hey, good morning. So, instead our program manager and team leaders told us to just walk around the school to make a presence, smile and say good morning to the students. I walked around with my fellow corps member Melanie and we decided it would only work if we made eye-contact with students so we weren’t awkwardly yelling out “good morning” and scaring away our kids. The awkward Liz moment of the day was when I went up to a kid and said, “oh, so it’s your first day?” while Melanie rolled her eyes and started cracking up. I meant to say, “oh, so it’s your first day at Markham?” since the student was in the 6th grade, but it just came out wrong and it was an awkward mess. I’m allowed to have my Liz moments at times…maybe it’ll even get my kids to like me more if they can make fun of me.

First period through third period I am in my math and science 6th grade class. Although I’ve met my teacher before, I had not met the students yet. I walked into the classroom to find a bunch of little 6th grade munchkins. They’re so adorable and all still look so young because they haven’t hit that puberty age yet. I immediately fell in love.

To start things off, we played the name game. Well, of course I was Liz the Lizard. When my teacher had to use the restroom at one point and I watched over the kids outside, one of my little ones gave me a side hug (we’re not allowed to hug the kids unless it’s an awkward side hug) and said, “Let’s play the let’s get to know more about Liz the Lizard game!” I’ve definitely identified him as the teacher’s pet already.

It’s so funny to be back in middle school because I sit there and see myself, my friends and classmates of Cunha Intermediate School (my middle school) in these kids. Within one period I was able to identify the class clown, the teacher’s pet, the “popular” girls and the boys who are still in the elementary school mode. It took two days to learn all my students names, but now I know them (thank you, NSLC for making me memorize names within a day…oh, summer camp).

Both the teachers I’m working for have very different work styles, but both completely complement each other. I highly, highly doubt I’ll ever go into teaching. However, if I do, I can sure as hell say I am already learning a lot from their impressive teaching skills. My math and science teacher, for example, never calls out a student for misbehaving or says anything negative to his students. Instead, his way of discipline and behavior watch is to actually draw attention to the kids who are doing the right thing. When a student is listening after he asks them to listen, he’ll say the student’s name and thank the student for listening. Likewise, if a student raises his or her hand, he’ll thank the student for following directions. You’d think that wouldn’t be enough to handle a bunch of rambunctious 6th graders, but it really works well and I like that he treats the students with a lot of respect.

My English teacher is a little stricter, but strict in a good way. She will clap four times and make the students repeat until they’ve quieted down. As soon as she claps, they know to listen. She will tell a student it’s rude if they are talking or what not, but right after she proceeds to smile, laugh and still enjoy being with her students even if they’re pumped up on sugar right after lunch. She respects them as well – even if they act up – which I think is a key to teaching. She actually was a journalism kid in college too and is totally behind starting a 6th grade newspaper soon. I love how journalism follows me wherever I go, whether I am reporting or not.

After reading over some of the assignments my students have had in English and math, I can already identify which students I will pick for my focus list of 10 or so students that will one-on-one tutor with me soon. The students don’t have a strong vocabulary. Therefore, their reading comprehension isn’t up to par. They can read, but they get bored easily because they don’t understand what they are reading. Some of the students leave out letters in words. In the word ’cause’ they spell it ‘caus’ or ‘because’ they spell it. Another student likes to spell “se” instead of “he” and most miss a lot of S’s, C’s, H’s, silent I’s and either miss it completely or mix up U’s and E’s. My English teacher told me that most of that is a language problem, since my students are all English intervention students and are near the end of being done with ESL classes. Most of my student’s families came from Mexico or Central America and Spanish was their first language. The students spell words like they think they would be spelled in Spanish. I’m good at grammar and punctuation, but explaining how to spell certain words based on English is going to be a challenge. I have to figure out a way to tutor my kids to navigate away from the recurring English issues they have because let’s face it – I could even end up teaching English with the Peace Corps. Gotta find those solutions soon. The good thing is most of my students like math, but hate reading and writing. That group of kids came to the right person! I hope I can get them to like English and then not have to tutor as much in math if they’re good at it (just another hint of how horrible I am at math: I completely did the math wrong for our most recent cable bill, so although all 13 of my roommates paid me, I still only had $3 left in my account after paying the bill because the math was off…).

The teachers told us to do a power greeting on the second day of school. I thought the kids would think it’s really lame and make fun of us. But some of them got involved! We did some chants like “My name is Liz and you know what I got? What do you got? I got a school that’s hotter than hot! How hot is hot? Batman and Superman can’t do it like…Marissa can!” Then Marissa would dance. We eventually got the students names and called them out to dance and imitated them, even if they were being stubborn and didn’t want to dance. Although we got some wannabe high-fives (i.e. a student going for a high-five then moving his hand when we try), it still means they love us enough to interact with us. Thanks to Melanie, we played some games at lunch and the students got involved again. They were having a great time laughing and cheering with us, even though some of them were embarrassed. I call that success. One student actually asked my roommate Daniel how we don’t get embarrassed doing chants and games like that. Daniel responded that as you get older, you end up caring less what people think of you. And that is true.

On Friday, we were back at the office and had training for our school role positions. I am working on outreach (kind of like public relations) with my roommate Daniel, which will be a dream team in the making. Example: I met someone today who teaches inner-city kids how to surf (I think for free, or so I hope). After work on Friday I stayed in the office for a while to talk with the communications team at City Year (Hi, Phil!) about the project my teammate Dylan and I will be working on up until November.

Dylan and I will be working on “Why I Serve” profiles about corps members with interesting stories to tell. We’re joining with the Save Service movement and hope to bring these final pieces before Congress in November to lobby to save AmeriCorps. I am SO SO SO stoked to be working on this project. Two of my favorite things: reporting and profiles.

Dylan will be doing more of the video/editing stuff and I’ll be doing actual written profiles on the corps members. That makes sense, considering I had an ongoing tally last semester on my refrigerator of “Broadcast v. Warden.” Every time broadcast gained a point on me (radio equipment running out of battery, editing software freezing on me, radio equipment not recording, noisy sound bites you can’t hear, really bad voice over and so the list goes on). I would add a point to the tally. However, whenever I got a good story, or editing actually worked out, or I made deadline without yelling at a computer, I gave myself a point. At the end of the semester, I showed my professor Judy Muller. She died of laughter, but then later told me, “I hope it’s not written in your blood.”

In other words: Dylan and I will make the perfect team.

I started reporting at our 9/11 service day at Newton Police Station in South Los Angeles on Saturday. I already got some awesome potential corps member’s profiles. One corps member, who will definitely be a profile sooner or later, was actually a student of a high school I spent a lot of time interviewing and writing about last semester. Can you say small world? I got overly excited when we discussed this. I am really, really looking forward to writing the profile about this corps member and the rest of ‘em.

I did another 9/11 service day with the Peace Corps today and met a bunch of really interesting RPCVs and people who are about to leave or in the same position like me and still applying. I plan on submitting my application in a week or so! The day has finally come!

This is too long – I’ll blog again later this week when I have energy. It’s my turn to make Sunday night dinner for the 14 person house, so I am making the only thing I can good: enchiladas.

Yours in service, as always,

Liz

Baby steps to turning Markham around: a can-do attitude

The Markham corps members served their second day at Markham Middle School on Thursday, which is the day we got to finally meet the teachers we’ll be working with. I was placed in sixth grade with most of the other corps members (that’s a good thing because math might be a little easier for me). I met one of my teachers, who is a math and science teacher, because the other teacher was away for a religious holiday. The math and science teacher I will be working with has been working at Markham for eight years, so it’s fair to assume he’s seen it all – from the amass of layoffs that hit the school recently and also a scandal where the asst. principal, Steven Rooney, was transferred to Markham from Fremont High and Foshay Learning Center after sexually assaulting students and threatening teachers. He sexually assaulted a student at Markham as well. However, the teachers that have been at Markham for a long time voiced their opinion saying that they know that this year will be a turn around year and “hope for no more scandals.” It seriously breaks my heart that schools like this just keep taking the blow. This year’s going to be a positive one, though, because the teachers are so enthusiastic and excited to work with us.

I didn’t get to really have one-on-one time with my teacher just yet, but he was awesome and seems like a very easy person to work with. I know we will be able to build a great relationship to do the best we can do for his students.

We talked a little bit with teachers about implementing after school clubs because one of City Year’s focuses is to creative a positive school climate for children, especially in an area like Watts where walking home on a daily basis kids are pushed to join gangs. Thus, keeping the kids off the streets in the schools untill their parents get off work seems ideal. However, we were hit with a hard reality check when our teachers told us that it will be really hard for us to get students to stick around for after school activities and tutoring because their parents do not want to leave them at Markham past school hours because it is unsafe. Based on our school-specific situation, we might have to start morning clubs and tutoring (which means getting to Markham at probably 6 a.m….and that would mean waking up at 4:15 a.m.). As early as it is, the Markham team is in. We are all so motivated to do whatever it has to take to turn this school around.

I pitched the idea of a school newspaper to the sixth grade teachers and they were stoked about it. They have been wanting to start a sixth grade newsletter, which would be very similar to a newspaper. I wanted to get all the grade levels involved in this production and make it a lunchtime activity, but since Markham is a huge school, all the grade levels have different lunch times. This still won’t stop me from starting a sixth grade newspaper. Kids are so, so, so proud to see their byline in a newspaper (awwww, my little reporters make my heart melt). It’s something they can take home and show to their parents, be motivated to keep writing and even help with their social skills through interviewing. Funding is short at City Year and with Markham, so I might have to raise outside funds. I got my connections at Annenberg though and I know some of my journalism professors would totally back this because it will help change this community (especially the new assistant dean who was a former NYT education reporter and my urban affairs reporting professor last year). When I get the go-ahead from City Year to e-mail my professors about fundraising, or even getting USC Annenberg to sponsor this, I’m going to right away. I’ve also been thinking all over the place of what kind of organizations I can partner with to bring into this school like The South Los Angeles Reporter mentoring program to help out with the newspaper and WYSE (a young woman mentoring program) to maybe do sexual health education to students or something along those lines. Marissa also met someone from the Black Family United initiative, a non-profit in South LA, who wants to work with us too. It’s all about networking baby. Our ideas are great and we’re starting off on a good foot. Now we just have to take the time to execute them.

Speaking of Annenberg, one of the funniest, loudest and welcoming teachers at Markham, Ms. Webster, is an ’81 alum. I knew she was a Trojan from the previous day, but when I asked her what her major was and she said “public relations” I literally jumped out of my seat, gave her a huge hug and she gave me a kiss on the cheek saying, “Oh, it’s that trojan love, baby.” You don’t really know how much the Trojan Family means to you until you’ve graduated, meet someone from your very school (School of Journalism YEA YEAAA) and just instantly want to befriend them. As cheesy as it is, it’s a sign I’m in the right place at the right time. I thought just having a Trojan among a bunch of bruins was cool enough. But an Annenberg grad? Especially right when Annenberg first opened? Now that’s pretty damn amazing.

We’re heading to Markham on Tuesday to meet once again with our teachers then on Wednesday it’s the first day of school! Mentally prepping.

Yours in service,
Liz

First service day: Clinton Middle School

Today was our first service day at Clinton Middle School, a school that is located literally three blocks from USC (close to the DMV by Fig). We teamed up in our PITW teams and painted inspirational murals all over the school, which all turned out to be amazing.

Here’s my PITW team before opening ceremony where LAUSD School Board President Monica Garcia spoke to us.

Here’s the mural I helped paint. Although you can’t see it, Sonya Sotomayor is on the left-hand side.