and I set up beanbag chairs so it was the kind of place you would want to come into. It was a place of learning and fun and surprises.
I had changed, as well. My new students would see a different Ms. Rhee. This time around, Ms. Rhee was not going to play. When I met my students for the first time, I wore my game face. No smiles, no joy; I was all thin lips and flinty glares. I made them line up and walk in and out of class.
âNope,â I said. âNot good enough. Try again.â
They lined up in the hall again and walked into the classroom.
âAgain,â I said. Four times.
My mistake the first year was trying to be warm and friendly with the students, thinking that my kids needed only love and compassion. What I knew going into my second year is that what my children needed and craved was rigid structure, certainty, and stability, as well.
O VER THE SUMMER I had taken some time to attend a professional development seminar set up by the educational consultants who had taken over the school. It was about how to teach math to kids. I am not mathematically inclined, so I thought it would be interesting but not very useful. But that professional development wound up changing my life.
I believe that if you give engaged, motivated people a kernel of crucial information, theyâll take the kernel and grow it into something ten times more valuable. But youâve got to give them something. That summer math course became my kernel. I learned how to teach Calendar Math, a system that launched a whole array of teaching tools and activities based on the numerical day of the week. The kids took it from there. They soaked it up.
Every day we did an exercise called Incredible Equations. We would take the number of the date (8 if it was March 8) and the kids would have to come up with different equations that equaled 8. At first, theyâd come up with simple ones, like 4 + 4 or 8 + 0, but then some of them would get creative.
âOne hundred minus ninety-two,â theyâd say.
I would respond: âGreat! You know what? There is another way to write one hundred, and that is ten times ten.â So I didnât teach them the concept around multiplication; I just showed them another way to write 100, and they latched on to that. And then I taught them to put a parenthesis around it and subtract 92, which gets you 8. Which is algebra. And so they just picked up on these things very naturally. Then we learned that 10 x 10 x 10 is 10-cubed, and we went on from there.
Year two was my first successful year in the classroom.
T HAT SECOND YEAR, WHEN I relied on Calendar Math, the teachers in our grade decided to do something a little different. We each wanted to be able to focus on a smaller number of subjects so we could really concentrate on becoming an expert in that arena. I had teamed up with Michele Jacobs, a first-year teacher, who would also teach math while the other two teachers taught language arts. Michele had graduated from Morgan State, where she had played basketball. She stood about six two and cut a commanding figure, so the students didnât mess with her. For me, she brought a sense of humor and enthusiasm and became a kindred spirit in the belief that all kids could achieve. We hit it off and coordinated all of our lesson planning.
The following year, my third, Michele and I teamed up again. We decided to go one step further and bring seventy kids together into one classroom. Instead of trading classes back and forth, we were all going to be in the same space with two teachers. We also had two wonderful âinterns,â Deonne Medley and Andrea Derrien, who worked alongside us very effectively.
We ran our entire classroom using a different model. We evaluated each studentâs progress academically, since we had some advanced kids and some kids who were really far behind. We tailored lessons for every single student. It was part of the Education Alternatives Inc. model that
I had changed, as well. My new students would see a different Ms. Rhee. This time around, Ms. Rhee was not going to play. When I met my students for the first time, I wore my game face. No smiles, no joy; I was all thin lips and flinty glares. I made them line up and walk in and out of class.
âNope,â I said. âNot good enough. Try again.â
They lined up in the hall again and walked into the classroom.
âAgain,â I said. Four times.
My mistake the first year was trying to be warm and friendly with the students, thinking that my kids needed only love and compassion. What I knew going into my second year is that what my children needed and craved was rigid structure, certainty, and stability, as well.
O VER THE SUMMER I had taken some time to attend a professional development seminar set up by the educational consultants who had taken over the school. It was about how to teach math to kids. I am not mathematically inclined, so I thought it would be interesting but not very useful. But that professional development wound up changing my life.
I believe that if you give engaged, motivated people a kernel of crucial information, theyâll take the kernel and grow it into something ten times more valuable. But youâve got to give them something. That summer math course became my kernel. I learned how to teach Calendar Math, a system that launched a whole array of teaching tools and activities based on the numerical day of the week. The kids took it from there. They soaked it up.
Every day we did an exercise called Incredible Equations. We would take the number of the date (8 if it was March 8) and the kids would have to come up with different equations that equaled 8. At first, theyâd come up with simple ones, like 4 + 4 or 8 + 0, but then some of them would get creative.
âOne hundred minus ninety-two,â theyâd say.
I would respond: âGreat! You know what? There is another way to write one hundred, and that is ten times ten.â So I didnât teach them the concept around multiplication; I just showed them another way to write 100, and they latched on to that. And then I taught them to put a parenthesis around it and subtract 92, which gets you 8. Which is algebra. And so they just picked up on these things very naturally. Then we learned that 10 x 10 x 10 is 10-cubed, and we went on from there.
Year two was my first successful year in the classroom.
T HAT SECOND YEAR, WHEN I relied on Calendar Math, the teachers in our grade decided to do something a little different. We each wanted to be able to focus on a smaller number of subjects so we could really concentrate on becoming an expert in that arena. I had teamed up with Michele Jacobs, a first-year teacher, who would also teach math while the other two teachers taught language arts. Michele had graduated from Morgan State, where she had played basketball. She stood about six two and cut a commanding figure, so the students didnât mess with her. For me, she brought a sense of humor and enthusiasm and became a kindred spirit in the belief that all kids could achieve. We hit it off and coordinated all of our lesson planning.
The following year, my third, Michele and I teamed up again. We decided to go one step further and bring seventy kids together into one classroom. Instead of trading classes back and forth, we were all going to be in the same space with two teachers. We also had two wonderful âinterns,â Deonne Medley and Andrea Derrien, who worked alongside us very effectively.
We ran our entire classroom using a different model. We evaluated each studentâs progress academically, since we had some advanced kids and some kids who were really far behind. We tailored lessons for every single student. It was part of the Education Alternatives Inc. model that
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