The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

The Mohawk Challenge at YES Prep East End

December 02, 2010 by Jeremy Jones

Guest Blog from first year teacher and corps member Sean de Luna, 9th grade social studies teacher at YES Prep East End

“Daddy...you cut your hair! It’s scary. I want your old hair back,” exclaimed a shocked 3-year old daughter as I came home from work.

Life isn’t fair. And I’m not talking about my hair. Social justice is what drove me to teaching. The students we teach don’t have the same academic or life opportunities as students living in areas with zip codes punctuated with dollar signs. In order to have a fighting chance at success in college, my students must to be competitive against the kind of affluent suburban students whose parents can afford to give them every opportunity AND an Audi for their 16th birthdays.

So it all started with our 9th Grade World Geography Big Goal: All students will become Social Studies AP Ready.

My kids may not get an Audi for their 16th birthday, but I’m committed to ensuring that 100% of them will be AP Ready. If Explorers are to have a sniper’s shot at getting into and graduating from the premier college of their choice, they need to develop skills that ensure a competitive score when they take AP exams later in high school. Success in AP is the great equalizer and it will ensure our students can compete against the rich kids living in zip code “bling”.

For the last 15 weeks, my 9th grade Explorers have been measuring their progress towards the Big Goal via projects, formative and summative assessments, and an ongoing World Geography Portfolio. However, the most objective assessment of AP Readiness to date has been the district’s Common Assessment because each student receives an AP score to gauge their mastery.
 

Enter “CAM” and the “Mohawk Challenge”. [Because the district terminology lacked “punch”, I invented the acronym “CAM” as shorthand for our goal: Common Assessment Mastery.]

To prove to the students that I was as committed as they were to our Big Goal, I created an academically ambitious yet personally grotesque proposition: if the 9th grade Explorers could be top in the district in CAM, I would let them transform my mane into a Mohawk. In order to qualify as “top in the district” the students had to have the highest average multiple choice score, the highest multiple choice passing rate, the highest free response scores, and the highest overall AP score average.

The kids CAM’ed it.

After weeks of tightly tucked shirts, rolled-up sleeves, and hard CAM preparation, the Explorers rose to the challenge and exceeded my expectations. If any East End Niners are reading this, I want you to know how proud I am of your performance thus far and can’t wait to see what we will achieve together by the end of the school year.  However, now I’m faced with an even bigger challenge…

…my daughter wants her daddy’s hair back.
 

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