Student Success in the New Salem Educational Initiative: Gifford Blake

Gifford Blake lives in a crumbling frame building in an area of North Minneapolis that has known too much violence in recent years. I pick Gifford up every week at his apartment, located up rickety stairs to a unit where a small bedroom, living room, and kitchen are shared by five people in the family:  Gifford, his mother (Marcia), sisters (Shawna [Grade 1] and Brenda [Grade 6]), and an infant brother.

Gifford was in Grade 4 during academic year 2011-2012, when he first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative.  He was functioning two levels below that of school enrollment in both math and reading.  This is a typical case for my students, who are generally functioning below grade level upon enrollment.  Gifford was receiving special education services at Sheridan K-8 school during that year, as he had in all of his school environments since kindergarten.  Gifford had received diagnosis for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), also a common assessment in the Minneapolis Public Schools, especially for African American males.

Never trusting these assessments, I immediately put Gifford on an aggressive program of skill acquisition that saw him quickly rise toward grade level in math and improve dramatically in reading.  Gifford did evidence a tendency to get distracted, but he latched quickly onto me as a teacher and confidante, and he generally stayed focused when well-engaged with manageable, carefully sequenced assignments.  Gifford, who frequently complained that there was not enough food at home, also gained significant focus by putting his hunger at bay while munching on sandwiches and granola bars that I brought for him.

Gifford had not been properly challenged in the school environment.  But as a student in the New Salem Educational Initiative, Gifford fully mastered his multiplication tables 0 through 10, learned to perform multi-digit operations in multiplication and division, and worked through challenging word problems in the manner of a full-fledged Grade 4 student.  Similarly, Gifford moved through sequential verbal skills assignments that built his vocabulary and reading comprehension much closer to the Grade 4 level. 

Gifford is on his way to academic success after just one year in the New Salem Educational Initiative. Marcia will revel as Gifford demonstrates full grade level mastery during academic year 2012-2013, moves onto a college preparatory track of study, and anticipates a future somewhere other than a shabby three-room apartment encompassed by purveyors of violence and drugs.