Summer of Service: Geneva High School & The Boys & Girls Club

Ashley Mie YangHobart and William Smith Colleges

Placement Overview

GHS: Challenges & AdjustmentsAt Geneva High School, in many ways, I felt very much at home. As a graduate of the teacher education program at Hobart & William Smith, I have completed four semesters of teaching placements, including one at Geneva Middle School. Thus, I felt confident at the outset that I would have no problems dealing with the student population.

Thus, it was a bit of a shock for me to see that the population of a summer school classroom was quite different from that of a school year classroom. While the smaller class sizes were a nice change from groups of 25-30 (on average there were 7-12 students in each of my classes, but sometimes as few as three), it was challenging to deal with the negativity and especially the sleepiness that many students brought with them. The 8 AM ninth grade Global Studies class was a particular challenge, with students often arriving tardy, hungry, and flat-out falling asleep in class. The fact that many students walked to school was complicated by the strict tardy policy, which counted any lateness of fifteen minutes or more as an absence, and after two absences a student could be dropped from the course. More than half of the students who failed the course failed as a result of attendance issues. This really brought to light for me the issue of urban schooling transportation and the effect it can have on a student’s academic success, which was not something I had previously considered.

Personal Growth

My position as Fine Arts Coordinator at the Boys and Girls Club Teen Center was one I anticipated with much excitement. A passionate lover of the arts and advocate for arts education, I have personally been involved in dance, musical theatre, creative writing, vocal music, and instrumental music at some point throughout my life. In the teen summer program, I endeavored to establish programs in theatre, dance, and digital arts.

Eventually, the dance program developed into two distinct classes: a hip-hop/choreography class, and an introductory ballet class. This was entirely a result of the club members’ interests and demand. In the choreography class, the students selected a popular song and, with very minimal support from me, put together almost enough choreography for the entire piece. Although the process was fun and easygoing, we also addressed dance themes such as tone, shape, moving to the beat, and counting music. The ballet class was much more teacher-led, focusing on beginning technique, breathing, spinal alignment, and being true to one’s individual bodily limitations. One exercise the girls in the ballet class really enjoyed was lying down on their backs on the floor to find their “true” turnout. In ballet, I tried especially hard to emphasize positive body image, to dispel any stereotypical images about dancers’ bodies. We talked about the importance of strength rather than slenderness, and respecting our bodies’ boundaries by not over-stretching.

Coordinating the Arts: Digital & Dramatics

In the Digital Arts class, originally, my goal was to create a student-run newspaper, similar to the one I had experience running on campus. However, getting the teens to think of writing over the summer as “fun”—even writing about their favorite music, their passions, and the things that irked them—proved to be a challenge beyond my abilities. Once that idea fell through, my supervisor suggested the idea of a club yearbook, which met with considerable more enthusiasm. One student, in particular, took on great leadership, getting club attendance rosters and hunting down members to get individual photos. He was skilled on the computer and set up a template in Microsoft Word, and coordinated other interested members in taking photos of other activities that went on at the club, such as games competitions, sports, art, outdoor recreation, garden club, and cooking. The yearbook club allowed the members to gain experience in digital photography and layout skills, as well as practice working in a group towards a common goal. Several of the members struggled with the compromising aspect of the activity, but because of their interest, they remained committed.

The theatre class, like Digital Arts, was originally intended to go in a different direction than where it ended up. The students seemed eager at the outset to put on a real play, and so we downloaded and began editing a script. Unfortunately, the tedious process of editing and rehearsing was not well-received, and we ended up dropping the script in favor of dramatic games and mini-skits instead. However, these were not without merit, as I noticed an increase in confidence in many of the participants as they were encouraged to be loud, take up space, and be the center of attention. Two sixth-graders in particular began asserting themselves in yearbook club against a very dominant, older tenth grade boy.

Two other arts-related activities this summer were the Slam Poetry workshop, given by an HWS student, and Project: Becoming, put on by Inspirit Dance Company with the support of HWS Dance Professor Cynthia Williams. In Project: Becoming, four members of the professional dance company worked with approximately a dozen high school girls for one week, doing activities to promote confidence and enhance self-esteem, as well as teach dance. The week culminated in a moving showcase of the girls’ work and dance performance attended by family, friends, and community members performed in the community center’s own blackbox theater.

ReflectionDuring my time at the Teen Center, I discovered the challenges of implementing an arts curriculum within a limited facility and with students not accustomed to having commitment demanded of them. It tested my skills of creativity and engagement as an educator, while also allowing me to interact with students in a more casual, non-academic setting and get a glimpse of their out-of-school lives. Overall, I gained a better understanding of how Geneva teens live, what is important to them, and most importantly, how to reach them on a personal level and engage them in a love of the arts.

AcknowledgementsSpecial thanks to the staff at the Boys & Girls Club Teen Center, GHS faculty & staff (especially Mr. Robert Smith, Mr. Jeff Dunham, and Mrs. Mary Conley), Cynthia Williams and Inspirit Dance Company, and the HWS CCESL office, especially Katie Flowers, for their support and participation in these projects throughout the summer

The review game I created, adaptable to any grade level or subject. The objective is for students to attain a card of each color by correctly answering a question, representing various themes within the unit or course

My Summer of Service Americorps placements at the Boys & Girls Club Teen Center and Geneva High School appeared, at first glance, to be two entirely separate job descriptions. However, as my work with both placements developed, it became apparent that I was working with two sides of the same coin. At Geneva High School, I worked as an assistant teacher in 9th, 10th, and 11th grade classrooms, supporting classes in Global Studies I and II, and US History, while at the Boys & Girls Club, I served as the Fine Arts Coordinator. Yet both jobs were about motivating teenagers, encouraging them to take risks, and working with them to make better choices in the future

Another challenge was how to get through the curriculum that ordinarily would have taken ten months in merely six weeks. Each teacher I worked with had a different style for tackling this particular task.. In the ninth grade class, we divided the hour-long period into sessions of notes followed by worksheets that served as informal learning assessments and were often made up of multiple-choice questions in the style of those that the students would encounter on the final exam . Other times the students completed WebQuests, or took notes on short video segments on relevant material. In this way, the classes were notso very different from what they would have encountered during the regular school year.

Where I saw summer school differ radically from my experiences in school-year classrooms was in the depth of material presented. Little supplementary material was presented and rarely did discussions go beyond the most critical concepts, because of the heavy time constraints. There was also much less of the Socratic Method used than usual; summer school classes were heavily teacher-centered and less student-centered than classrooms I have seen during the school year, and there was much less give-and-take discussion between the two. Whether this was due to the amount of material needed to cover and time constraints, or the interest and abilities of the students present, I cannot say. In the tenth and eleventh grade classrooms I supported, classes were entirely lecture-based in a way I did not personally experience until college; students followed along the lecture in the exact same notes packet I lectured from, and were expected to take supplementary notes on the back. I definitely feel that I have grown as a result of my summer school teaching experience, both as an educator and as an individual. In the much more intimate settings of summer school classes, I had a greater chance to get to know my students, and saw how important having a strong, positive relationship is in getting students to succeed. I was faced with many classroom management challenges I had never anticipated, but in talking with my cooperating teachers and testing out techniques in the heat of the moment, learned a couple of tricks that seem to work for diffusing tension between pairs or groups of students, re-orienting a class that has gotten off-task, and finding ways of getting the most reluctant student to participate. I also learned the importance of switching from “good cop” to “bad cop,” and the appropriate times to do so, because it is okay if not all of my students love me, as long as at the end of the day, I can say I made a choice that resulted in positive growth for them—even if they don’t know it yet.

Coordinating the Arts: Dance

Project: Becoming, put on by Inspirit Dance Company at the Teen Center, was a week-long dance workshop designed to empower young women, culminating in a performance. Approximately a dozen girls participated.