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This publication has been named a winner of the 2008 Silver Award for Excellence in Communications from the Council on Foundations.

May 2009 Volume 4, Issue 5
A KnowledgeWorks Foundation Publication

Download this issue in printer-friendly PDF format

Editor’s Note: As high schools across Ohio are sending their 2009 graduating classes into a world upturned by economic uncertainty, the importance of making sure that every student is prepared to succeed in higher education and 21st-century careers has never been clearer. At East High School in Youngstown, Ohio, educators have increased their ability to do that through KnowledgeWorks Foundation’s Ohio High School Transformation Initiative, where large impersonal high schools have been divided into small schools that allow for close teacher-student relationships and personalized teaching. During Teacher Appreciation Month, we have asked this year’s Ohio Teacher of the Year, Jennifer Walker, to share her experiences helping create one of East High’s new schools designed to ensure that every student has the chance to succeed.

The art of making sure all students learn

By Jennifer Walker
2009 Ohio Teacher of the Year

Educator and author Richard DuFour one time challenged an audience of teaching professionals by saying, “Don't tell me you believe all children can learn; tell me what you do when they don’t.” At the urban high school where I teach, it is painfully evident that all our children are not learning. As an educator in a school where 95 percent of our students are minorities and disadvantaged, I am faced with a barrage of education issues every day. Who could turn a blind eye to our fledgling Ohio Graduation Test scores, our alarmingly high freshman retention rates, our 83 percent graduation rate and our failure to make Annual Yearly Progress under No Child Left Behind provisions?

It would be easy for my colleagues and me to shrug our shoulders and say that we’re an urban high school and doing the best that we can, but our school has accepted responsibility for our shortcomings and failures and we are focused on change. We continually strive to find better solutions to educate all of our students, and we are committed to increasing the relationships, rigor and relevance in our school.

Teaching is hard work. Teaching in an inner-city high school is even harder work. Educational challenges are confounded by poverty, hunger and children being raised by elderly grandparents. Children who miss the first week of school because they didn’t have money for school clothes. Transient students whose families move from rental to rental or from state to state. Drugs, violence and high crime rates.

Like other young, idealistic teachers, when I began as a language arts teacher I dreamed of saving every child who stepped into my classroom. My room would be a utopia where students could authentically express themselves through their writings, where they would lose themselves in the stories and poetry of great authors. I would be the teacher that students would always feel comfortable sharing their stories with. My room would be a safe haven from the outside world.

That ideal has met some harsh realities. Last year, I was sharing an experience with a class when Anthony interrupted me. He said, “Miss, you grew up in the movies.” I have come to realize that not every child was blessed to grow up in the safe and nurturing environment that I grew up in. Not every child has someone to take her to the public library every week and buy her paperbacks for her weekly allowance like my parents did. Not every child has a mom and a dad to write her cards and letters affirming her and who never once weren’t waiting up when she came home from a date.

Throughout the last 10 years, my students have taught me so many valuable lessons, some of them painful.

Throughout the last 10 years, my students have taught me so many valuable lessons, some of them painful. Life is hard. And life is unfair. And sometimes there is so much hurt and pain and confusion that no one teacher can help to heal it. Hearing my students’ stories has opened my eyes beyond the white picket fences of my suburban neighborhood.

Earlier this year, my ninth graders wrote personal narratives. Keaira wrote about losing her father to a shooting three days before her 13th birthday. Da’shana described how her mother’s boyfriend stabbed her this year and now she is afraid for her mother’s life. Kerrisha wrote about the shooting death of her brother last spring. Trineca, a student who transferred several weeks into the school year, wrote about her first day at our school. While conferencing with her, I mentioned that her story had very little plot and no conflict and asked if there another event that might be a better topic. She said that everything in her life had been very painful and she couldn’t write about any of it.


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