Volunteer
Citizen Schools is Coming to the Windy City
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Bryce Bowman is the Executive Director of Citizen Schools’ new launch site in
Chicago.
Chicago has been my home for the past seven years and I am energized, honored, and inspired to be in a role that brings an organization with a proven model for student success to an amazing city. Citizen Schools has been a successful expanded learning time school partner in cities around the nation and I am excited to help bring the organization to the city where I am raising my own family, Chicago, and to the students of Chicago Public Schools.
Education reform and expanding the school day has been a very hot topic in Chicago recently, and what excites me most about bringing Citizen Schools into that environment is that it gives everyday people the opportunity to get off the sidelines and into the classroom. It offers the ability to integrate the Chicago business and civic community into our schools.
We can all agree that, given the right support and access, all kids can learn and we can all help give kids more opportunities. We all have something to contribute to help them realize their potential regardless of what happens with union negotiations and policy decisions.
Through Citizen Schools, rather than just discussing education reform around the water cooler or at a party, people from all walks of life can enter schools, inspire kids by teaching what they’re passionate about, and become active change agents in closing the achievement gap for the students of Chicago Public Schools.
We eagerly look forward to partnering with great schools and providing them with additional resources to drive student achievement. But, in order to truly impact students, we need to build a great team. Consider volunteering as a Citizen Teacher, applying for the Teaching Fellowship, or learning more about our mission.
Giving Time, Changing Lives
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Lynne Brown is a Lease Analyst at Cassidy Turley FHO. She is also a Citizen Teacher with Citizen Schools.
I am a Citizen Teacher.
It is one of the many things I am. I am a girlfriend. I am a daughter. I am the fun aunt. I am a friend. I am a lease analyst. I am a sister. I am a mentor. I am a real estate professional. I am a writer. I am an optimist. I am a member of Red Sox Nation.
I am a Citizen Teacher.
My path to becoming a Citizen Teacher began in August 2009. During the media coverage of Senator Edward Kennedy’s death, I was struck by one photo: a simple photo taken in an unglamorous setting – a public school classroom.
That photo and the story behind it taught me something I never knew about the Senator. For years, he mentored in a public school classroom. It amazed me that a man of his stature and with his hectic schedule took the time to volunteer in an inner city school. It struck me, if he could do it, what could I do?
In 2010, I was introduced to Citizen Schools and their City Building program by one of my clients, a national supporter of the program. I answered the Citizen Schools call of what will you teach by volunteering to teach Real Estate to a group of middle school students at the Salemwood School in Malden, MA.
As I headed to my first class, I was terrified. Positive I’d gotten in over my head, I questioned what I had been thinking when I volunteered. “I can’t teach,” I told myself. And the only other thing I thought I knew for sure was that when the ten week commitment was over, I would never volunteer again and I’d never have to set foot inside a middle school classroom again.
Citizen Schools changes lives. It is not just the students’ lives that are changed. The lives of the volunteers are changed as well. I get to spend 90 minutes a week with a group of enthusiastic and energetic middle school students. It is unlike anything else I do. As a Citizen Teacher, I have had to step out of my comfort zone and well, teach. Being a Citizen Teacher as it turns out is not only fun, but also rewarding.
The rewards and successes come in various forms:
- witnessing the pride on a student’s face when she gets the answer correct to a real estate vocabulary question;
- the simple joy when a student sneaks back to the classroom to say “I love you, Ms. Brown, see you next week;”
- encouraging a student, who struggles to write one sentence until he is able to write six whole sentences for his WOW! presentation;
- watching a reticent boy who barely spoke a word during the first class transform into a prolific speaker and deliver a wonderful presentation at WOW!;
- the text messages I receive from former students letting me know how they are doing.
Ironically after four semesters of being a Citizen Teacher, the two things I thought I knew for sure on that first day: that I can’t teach and that I’d never ever do this again turned out to be untrue. The truth is I can teach and I do. And while it may be true that I never have to do this again, the larger truth is that I want to.
On Tuesday afternoons from 4:15 – 5:45, I can be found in Room 126 at the Dever-McCormack School in Dorchester, MA teaching sixth graders about commercial real estate development or real estate math. By the end of the semester, my students will know what profit and revenue are, how to prepare a construction budget and an operating expense reconciliation statement. Throughout the term, they will have fun playing math games or visiting construction sites, build confidence in their math and public speaking skills, eat a few cookies and hopefully prove that:
Math Fun + Math Practice = Better Math Grades.
And that in itself is the only reward required.
From Struggle, Growth: How Students are like Butterflies
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Heather Cook is a volunteer Citizen Teacher at De Vargas Middle School in Santa Fe, NM. Follow her blog here.
I knew it would be a challenge, but I was excited too. I looked forward to my class of 12-year-olds taking up a form of lacemaking that was last popular when their great-grandmothers were 12. I also knew from hard-won experience that they would face a steep learning curve. Once you learn the basic stitch, it is very simple. But mastering the basic stitch is a challenge that leads many adults to throw up their hands in despair and curse the scoundrel who invented this hellish craft.
I also knew that the payoff would be high: Well-earned self confidence, patience, determination, a new skill, potentially a new hobby if they kept it up, and clear bragging rights over their friends.
Tatting is a form of lacemaking made with a ball of thread and either two hand-held shuttles or a long needle. It is great for making jewelry, decorations, edgings, and much more. Currently, several of the girls are churning out earrings while the boys are determined to get good enough to make rosaries.
While watching these brave (and sometimes frustrated) pre-teens attempt to conquer this time-honored art, I have been struck by their resemblance to butterflies. Not in how they dress in bright colors, though they do, or in that they flit from flower to flower gathering nectar, though that is on their minds. Rather, in that the struggle to learn something new is akin to the process of a butterfly’s birth.
Have you ever watched a butterfly break out of its cocoon? It is slow and tortured work. The butterfly has to fight hard, take many breaks and claw his way into the light. If you were watching, you might be tempted to give the little fellow a hand; maybe make the crack wider to give him more space. However, it turns out that providing a shortcut would kill the newborn butterfly. The struggle itself is necessary for life. In straining against the cocoon, certain essential fluids are pushed out into the wings, and if you help him get out, the wings will not fully develop and the butterfly will die.
Every time we learn something new, we struggle. Whether it is tatting or chemistry or balancing a checkbook. It is in this struggle that we learn who we are, what reserves of strength and character we have. We learn how to overcome difficulties and what it takes to succeed.
When we struggle hard to make something, learn something, become someone new, we not only gain that skill or knowledge, we gain something even more valuable: We grow and live more fully. The next time these kids try to learn something difficult, they can look back at this experience, remember what it took to succeed, and think, “because I learned tatting, I can do this too.” That is the power of the butterfly.
The next time you are tempted to hand your student the answer or give them a shortcut to success, remember the butterfly’s life and death struggle and remember that your student too is struggling for her life.
Celebrate the butterfly!
From Bad Boys to B-Boys: The Students Become the Teachers
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Lorelle Schaub is the Operations Coordinator of Citizen Schools New Mexico.
“I like teaching,” says Elvis Jemez an 8th grader at De Vargas Middle School who is teaching a Break Dancing apprenticeship with his good friend, Jesse Portillo. Elvis and Jesse were both students in Citizen Schools as 7th graders last year. From the outside, Jesse and Elvis were “bad boys.” They were often found skipping class, arguing with other students or teachers, showing up late, and rarely completing their work.
Despite their rough outside, they were, at heart, good kids. Elvis would show videos of himself teaching his little brother how to break dance, and Jesse had a smile that you couldn’t help but love. As the semester went on they got better, they showed up to class, did homework, and attempted to study for tests. By no means were they perfect, but they were headed in the right direction.
This semester they continued to head in the right direction as they decided to come back to Citizen Schools, not as students but as volunteer Citizen Teachers, teaching their own Break Dancing Apprenticeship.
These two young teachers command the attention of the room as they give directions. The students stand in a circle and review some foot work they learned the previous week. Jesse starts at one end of the circle, while Elvis starts on the opposite side; they approach each student and watch them demonstrate the skill they just learned. Leadership skills shine through as their thoughtful coaching: “good, that’s perfect,” or “okay, keep practicing I want you to do it 5 more times,” is heard throughout class.
Elvis and Jesse are committed to sharing what they love to their peers and doing it in a way that makes sense, “I like everything about teaching, I get to give skills to kids, who get to give it to other kids, who give it to other kids. I’m affecting a lot of people.” says Elvis about the experience. “It feels good, I have fun and I’m not on the streets.” added Jesse.
The apprenticeship is not only affecting the boys who are teaching, but their apprentices, as well. A fellow 8th grader, Jerry Chavez says, “I chose this apprenticeship because Elvis taught my brother and his friends how to dance and I want to learn too. When you’re dancing you are in another world. Doing what you love. There are no drugs, no gangs, and no violence.”
Students in the class are focusing not just on their love of dance; they are also focusing on 21st Century skills. Teamwork is seen all around the room as students are helping each other. One student is helping her friend in the corner, while a group of boys are working on making their moves align together.
Apprentices Cristol Torres and Luli Rodriguez share how they feel this apprenticeship has improved their oral communication and leadership skills while also being fun, “I am learning to express myself and not be shy. It’s really cool that our friends are being leaders and teaching this apprenticeship. It’s one of my favorites of all time.”
