May 12, 2008
Leaving Too Soon
-Brent Graham '09
It has been a long and eventful week and I am sad that this is our final day in the city. I have come to enjoy this class almost more than the class I taught for two weeks. The differences are numerous but it is the similarities that make me smile. The questioning demeanor of the students is the same as back in Crawfordsville, the curiosity of how old I am and if I’m married, its the age and it is a pleasant surprise that in the city the same questioning and energetic atmosphere can exist. The biggest difference here as compared to Crawfordsville is the racial diversity. There is a much larger minority population here than at at home. It is not something that changes the things that are taught but rather how they are taught. At home we try to teach about other cultures since there is such a lack of diversity. Here the teachers must teach to diversity. it is a different approach. Today the students will be performing there annual spring assembly. It is something that I am looking forward to seeing. The classes present short performances highlighting what they learned or what they excel at. In the sixth grade the other class is going to recite slam poetry to drums. What I can’t wait to see though is my class perform their Hp-Hop dance. They have been working on it for weeks. I am sad to leave this wonderful community that I have come to love. I was tentative at first but now I am comfortable in the city and in a school environment that I have never seen before. I would love to have more experiences like this in the future and will even consider teaching in a city school when I complete the education program. it is something I would have never said before today. That simple fact helps me realize how valuable this experience has been.
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May 11, 2008
Learning In and Out of the Classroom
-Brett Sanders '09
What a terrific experience on Wednesday! During the morning hours, all three of us, including Scott Liska, Mitch Palmer, and myself were able to fully experience Chicago’s public transportation. Needless to say, the CTA is definitely a mental, physical, and cultural experience to be had in very few places throughout America. After a ten minute train ride, we all hopped onto the public bus and peeled back our eyelids, trying to stay alert from the early morning rise. It is interesting to notice the different people that come and go on the public transportation. If I had one piece of advice for future CUECE’s, it would be to use the public transportation early and often. This will help if any one is in dire need to get home, or it can simply allow one to see some of the people of Chicago. There are some interesting people on the public transportation indeed. However, thus far while using the Chicago train system, we have become acquainted with a die-hard White Sox fan, some travelers from Canada, and some people that we perhaps did not desire to meet.
Once we arrive at Prosser High School, we stepped through the metal detectors, which were a brand new experience for me, and luckily they let us in. I proceeded to grade some of my host teacher’s papers throughout the first two periods of the school day. Next, I observed some great discussions pertaining to the Shakespeare play, Othello. All the while throughout the discussions, I was going through the preparations for my short lesson plan on Transitional Devices that I had worked on the night before. Once the Sophomore American Literature course rolled around, my nervousness was rising and the room was getting very warm. My host teacher performed a little re-cap of the day before lesson plan, and then he introduced my teaching subject and me. I was very nervous, but to my surprise the students were absolutely respectful, attentive, and gave a lot of feedback for me. It was a great experience. After the first few minutes, I began to loosen up and the discussion began to flow better. Although it appeared that I was not nervous (or so my observers stated), I felt extremely nervous. However, afterwards I realized that all of my nervousness was for naught. There was absolutely no reason for me to be nervous or even think that the classroom would turn into brouhaha. Even though it was a short time period of teaching, those fifteen minutes has changed my perception of urban schools and the possibility for me to be able to teach within one.
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May 09, 2008
School, Shovels, and Sox
-Eric Shaver '09
Our third day of teaching began just a bit later in the day. An extra forty-five minutes of sleep due to a shorter day of classes gave Dan, JT, and I an added boost of energy, something which would be essential later in the day. After slipping off of the Brown Line and into the rain, the three of us slipped into Von Steuben and met up with Josiah, who went in a bit earlier. After meeting up with my host teacher and helping the history department word a pair of questions on their world history final exam, I took my seat at the back of Mr. Culberson’s classroom and (as I have down for the previous two days) watched a master go to work in his classroom. Using a deluge of real world examples, he quickly had me scribbling down notes on proportional taxes, the “Free-Rider Theory”, poll taxes, flat taxes, and numerous other nuances of American economics. I can honestly say that I have understood more principles of econ these past two days than in an entire year of high school economics!
Before watching his next few classes, a pair of them being his world history students, I had sat at length and discussed my lesson plan I had prepped the previous night on the Treaty of Versailles, critiquing, improving, and changing the language and relevance of my lesson and accompanying activity. Truly excited, Mr. Culberson said that I would take control of the classroom tomorrow, teaching my lesson to his two freshman classes. Yet, I would not be able to finish watching my host teacher at work for the rest of the day. Instead, the entire class departed from their schools early to meet up with each other at Ravenswood Elementary school for our service learning activity.
In front of us spread a vastly overgrown garden flanking three corners of the school’s playground. Armed with trowels, shovels, and gloves, we set about removing weeds, repairing flower beds, and planting flowers for two hours, filling up two dumpsters full of unearthed greenery in the process. Once we finished, Dr. T-V, Pittard, and Iazetto presented rewards of M&Ms and bottled water as we sat and discussed the events of the day. A quick trip on the Brown Line back to our hostel resulted in a hot shower for the entire crew before a change of clothes prepped us for the night’s last activity.
While I must preface this final paragraph with a disclaimer, it is of serious importance. While I am a devout follower of the Cincinnati Reds, I am, at heart, a fan of the game of baseball. With these final few, hurried keystrokes, we are about to board a train to ride South to US Cellular Field to take in a White Sox game. I can only hope that the members of my fantasy teams do well! In closing, I must say that I am extremely excited for tomorrow. I cannot wait to teach for the first time this week!
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May 08, 2008
Shenanigans
Dan Schwanekamp - As a group, Eric Shaver, Josiah Roberts, JT Moore, and I left for Von Steuben at 6:15 this morning. After Eric downed a Red Bull, we caught the 6:20 train to Kimball. We beat the professional crowd out, riding a mostly empty “L” train. My teacher has first period off, so the first hour of my day is spent helping my host teacher in the computer lab creating worksheets. Apparently my skills for messing around with Paint on the computer when I am bored will actually benefit me in my career.
In my second day in the classroom, I started to get into the swing of things. Although I began to teach a little yesterday, today was really my first day to teach a lesson in Chicago. The lesson itself was a little trial-by-fire because I was informed I was taking over the lesson only seconds before I began. With that being said, I really enjoyed getting up front and teaching the students. They were very receptive of a new face and seemed to pick up on the excitement of parabolas (at least no one fell asleep). I taught four class periods and the new experience of teaching in an urban setting was very rewarding.
After riding the Brown Line 50 minutes back to our hostel, our Wabash class got together to debrief about our adventures in our three separate schools. It is very interesting to hear the differences and similarities between the Chicago Public Schools. So far, everyday has produced 2 or 3 stories that either amaze us or make us laugh. That laughter today carried us into dinner.
As a group, we took the red line to Chinatown. Sitting around two larger round tables, the 12 of us hunkered down for some good eating. As the dinner wore into its second hour, my side of the table began to find everything hilarious. Being cooped up together for four straight days has created some inside jokes that make us laugh to the point of tears. The term shenanigan is now a widely used phrase in our group. Overall, we had not only a great experience in the classroom, but we are really starting to enjoy the time together to laugh, learn, and just be Wabash men.
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A Whole New World
-Josiah Roberts
I am an not an urban man, and this experience has opened my eyes to a whole new set of experiences. I have never had to navigate through a huge city before, let alone on public transportation, so this has been a totally new experience. I and the other students who are placed at Von Steuben leave the hostel everyday at 6:20 to make the hour-long trip to school. This is extremely different from Wabash, where I have to make up 5 minutes before class in order to make it on time.
Once in school I have been blessed with watching an amazing teacher. My host teacher is amazing. She has an amazing rapport with the students that obviously helps her keep their attention. Her teaching style seems effortless - something that I hope to learn from during this experience.
After school, we met and discussed our day and then proceeded to Chinatown for dinner. I love Crab Rangoon, and this place renewed that love. It was the most amazing Chinese food I have ever had. After stuffing my face till I felt my stomach was about to burst, I returned to the hostel with leftovers for lunch tomorrow and am now going to bed early to so I can wake up early tomorrow.
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May 07, 2008
First Day on the Job
Mitch Palmer '09 - Today we started off at an hour we all hope we don’t have to see again until we get into the real world. After battling between ourselves and the other residents for the one shower on our floor that doesn’t drip like a clogged watering-can, we split into our various groups and went our separate ways to school. For some of us that meant an hour long trip by bus and/or subway across the city to our host schools.
This is our third and final trip to Chicago since last October, and this time around we’ll have the opportunity to get involved in and possibly even teach a few lessons for our host classes. Today, I was able to help the students in a few of my classes with reading and understanding Romeo and Juliet, along with my host teacher, while the students read to each other in small groups. I think all of us are looking forward to getting more involved as the week goes on, and in my case, I’m looking forward to being able to teach a full lesson to all of my classes in a couple days.
After school we had another long trip back to the Hostel where we “debriefed” on today’s experiences. It was a good opportunity to hear about one another’s day and learn about the similarities and differences in our various host schools.
An hour or so later we went out to dinner at the Greek Islands restaurant and ate. When we finished there we had a good long walk back to the Hostel and are now getting ready for another early morning tomorrow.
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May 04, 2008
Cow Brains and Gas Masks
-Scott Liska '09
Today was our first chance to visit the city after recovering from yesterday’s day of travel. It took a little longer than anticipated to get ready due to the fact that there were only two showers for the entire floor at the hostel. This wasn’t helped by the fact that one of the showers was occupied for almost an hour! I hope that this isn’t foreshadowing tomorrow morning’s preparation for our first day in the schools. Most of us already have to wake up at 6AM to make the hour-plus commutes to our host schools.
After we were all finally ready to head out into the heart of the city, we walked to the Maxwell Street Market which interestingly enough is not on Maxwell St. The market, now residing on Canal St., is the city’s longest running open air flea market. I speak for almost all of us when I say that there was at least one thing there we had never experienced. From cow brain tacos to gas masks, there was something for everyone to buy.
After the market, we traveled to the Chicago Historical Museum where we saw some interesting exhibits and learned some intriguing facts. Particularly cool exhibits were the actual bed that President Lincoln died in and an exhibit about the origins of the Low Rider car.
Practice runs on the public transportation system have hopefully prepared us for our first day in the schools. I think the city is becoming less intimidating as we progress through the week.
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