MET SCHOOL on Thursday, was a good day, as I got to see some of the Main Interests of the Students in other classes than Tim Shannon. For the reader, the Students of the Met School are required to do a Personal Project every trimester. If that was not pressure enough, your parents must be there, as well as your peer group, several Instructors and anyone else that has an interest to attend. During the interview while the Student is giving a Powerpoint Presentation, he is being graded on the content, context, delivery, quality of the presentation by all of the people listening to his / her speech.
Yesterday I was privileged to watch a young man who has been taking a Manufacturing Class at nearby Providence Campus of CCRI, where he has been taking a class twice a week on various types of welding and grinding of metals, plastics, PVC pipes, and other types of Manufacturing Processes. Not only does this person have to keep up his school grades, and the CCRI school grades, but on Fridays he was an Internship Job that may or may not pay him any money for his work. He is getting credit for his Internship Project as well as getting Early College Credit for his twice a week classes, plus the invaluable work experience that is so desired as a prerequisite before you can be employed.
I was very impressed by this young man whom we will call Jorge. His young blue-collar, working class parents were very proud and they listened to their son's presentation, as well as to praise being heaped upon Jorge by not only his Peer Group, by his Teachers, Instructors, and other Staff Members of the MET SCHOOL. I got a little teary-eyed watching the happy working class parents leaving the school a little while later, when they were wishing their son well and told him that they loved him. This is one young man who has his head on straight, staying away from the street corner and gangs of any stripe, and is headed for a successful career, and not for a life of crime and incarceration in jail.
These Personal Trimester Projects alone impressed me, not only by the immense amount of added work that is needed by the Student in attending additional training classes and getting an Internship Co-Operative position, and having to keep up his grades in various classes of the Met School as well.
If that were not impressive enough in one day, two students were preparing for their presentations by taking apart their computers to make them better? Clearly these Students are being positively engaged by their Teachers, Instructors, Resource Officers, and Staff of the Met School. Nowhere was there any discord, nowhere were any shouting or angry voices, but only the happy sound of Students from many different diverse backgrounds calling out to their friends of different races, colors, and creeds, and hugging them or giving each other high fives. How very different from the other Public High Schools in the City and the State of Rhode Island, where there is a Police Officer in every building, and fights and yelling and shouting seems to be the order of the day. It reminds me about the movie we recently viewed called, "Freedom Writers" where one first year teacher white teacher from affluent Newport Beach, California, goes to teach in a racially mixed, working-poor school system where there are four main tribes of students who cling together by ethnic origin and have nothing but hostility towards each of the "other tribes." By the end of the movie, Mrs. G has not only not written them off as losers, but took two part time jobs in order to buy reading materials from her own pocket, that they school would allow her to have for "those" students. By the end of the movie she has greatly improved their reading and comprehension scores, but have united them as a single Mrs. G's Tribe. She was also allowed to continue on as their Primary Teacher in the Junior and Senior years. The Met School reminds me of the net result of Mrs. G spending the time and her own money to make sure that her Students have a successful future, and not one of Drugs, Gang Violence, and the girls getting pregnant by age 15 or 16 years old. There seems to be no discipline problems at the Met School, only love and mutual respect of one another, to the point where everyone protects each other.
Fred Issa, 11-19-2014
No comments:
Post a Comment