Grand Opening

Tomorrow, Monday, September 13, 2010, after a 20 year absence from the classroom, I will begin a year long relationship with about 100 seventh grade boys in my English classes.  This will happen at the Young Oak Kim Academy at 6th and Shatto in the Wilshire or Koreatown District of central Los Angeles.  YOKA is a new (one year old) middle school in the Los Angeles Unified School District.  It's pretty small as middle schools go, with only about 850 students.  It is named for a Korean-American war hero from WW2 and the Korean War who went on to become a distinguished community activist in Los Angeles.

YOKA is just a regular neighborhood school--not a charter school or a magnet school or anything special--but from the moment it opened last year YOKA has been committed to a full menu of reforms that will make it a very exciting place for me to return to teaching after a couple decades of doing other (mostly easier) jobs in the school system.  (For those who don't know me, there will be more about those other jobs later.)

Let me summarize the commitment to reform at my new school since that's why I decided to teach there.  YOKA is the only school in the whole LA district organized around single gender instruction in academic classes.  The boys are on the second floor, and the girls are on the third floor.  Single gender classes are having something of a revival based largely on new brain research about the differences between male and female brains.  I don't know much about it yet, but I'm looking forward to exploring the research and practices associated with single gender classrooms.

In addition YOKA is committed to project based learning, a form of instruction I have long championed in policy discussions and in the credential classes I teach at National University.  YOKA is also a STEM school, which means that there will be a strong emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math.   This is especially important for the school's population of mostly low-income immigrants and racial minorities and for girls of course, all of whom are severely underrepresented in these fields.

YOKA has instituted a robust "advisory" period for all students of about an hour a day.  I'll have about 25 seventh grade boys during this time, and it is a great opportunity to support them academically and in other ways.  Given the decimation of counseling services in schools, the advisory model is a great way to fill that gap.

Finally, YOKA is organized around grade level teams, so I will be one of four teachers--math, science, history, English--for the seventh grade boys.  We will all have a common planning period.  This is another model that I have long championed since the Honig-era middle school reform movement launched by the document "Caught in the Middle."  I've never taught on a team like this, but I've always thought it was a great way to organize teaching.

All of these reforms make YOKA a very attractive place for me to teach, but of course reforms are only as good as the people who implement them.  The principal of YOKA is Ed Colacion.  I know him because he was principal at the school my younger son just graduated from, LA School of Global Studies in the Miguel Contreras Learning Center at 3rd and Lucas in downtown LA.  LASGS had a project based curriculum, and I know that Ed is committed to these reforms.  In addition, he has a very collaborative style of leadership--an essential quality in a principal.  Those of you who are teachers know that a good principal is crucial to a school's success, and that's a big reason I accepted this position. 

My first impression of the three other teachers I'll be working with is also very positive, as is my overall feeling about the whole staff based on two days of meetings last week.  There seems to be a strong sense of building a new school culture based on the most student-centered practices.  The spirit of Paulo Freire is present at YOKA.

So there you have it.  I may have been pushed into making this choice by the ending of my previous job on a GEAR UP grant, but I am embracing it as a fitting coda to a long career in public education.  After 15 years of teaching at Crenshaw HS, and after over twenty years of working to improve education at the policy level on the LA school board and in CSBA, in teacher recruitment and teacher training, and in other ways from outside of the classroom, now I get a chance to apply everything I've learned to my own teaching.

And since I've been wanting to write more and maybe start a blog, this seemed like a perfect time to begin--new teaching job, new practices, new colleagues.  I intend to provide a running commentary on my experiences at YOKA along with intermittent opining on the great issues in education today (and maybe an occasional reflection on my current musical interests or the progress of my two sons through late adolescence into adulthood).  I hope you'll keep reading and sending me your comments.  Wish me good luck tomorrow!