Part Four: Another Illustrative Case to Consider in Observng the Principles of the New Salem Educational Initiative in Motion

Interaction with Ezekiel Jefferson, Melinda Parks, and Family on 19 August 2013


Note:  Data privacy pseudonyms are used for all people and schools cited in this five-part series of articles.

Part Four:  The Specifics of the Interaction

When I arrived at Ezekiel’s home in far North Minneapolis, located on that atypically quiet and remote residential extension of Penn Avenue unfolding northward from 49th Avenue North (the more typical and well-known stretch runs from I-394 past Dowling), at 1:00 PM on Monday, 19 August 2013, my student of multiple years greeted me with a big smile. This was notable, because during the previous academic year, Ezekiel’s facial expression had more typically revealed the challenges and the associated stresses with which he was grappling.

His sister, Anna, came up to me beaming, with, “Me first, Gary!!!”

Not wanting to show favoritism, I looked at Ezekiel. “It’s okay. She can go first. But I finished the whole book!!!”

“You did!!?” I exclaimed, with genuine admiration. “All 45 readings?”

“Yep.”

“Wow, Ezekiel. That’s impressive! Okay, let me work with Anna first, then you can show me all the good reading that you’ve done.”

My academic sessions with Anna generally flow more smoothly that do those with Ezekiel. Like so many younger children participating in the New Salem Educational Initiative, Anna watched an elder sibling go off with me each week for academic sessions held at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, excitedly enrolling herself and doing the same during her Grade K (kindergarten) academic year of 2011-2012.

During Ezekiel’s trying year of 2012-2013, Anna’s second year of enrollment in the Initiative and her Grade 1 year in school, we began to meet in the Jefferson/ Parks home, so that all of us who constituted the most significant and caring adults in Ezekiel’s life could more readily compare notes at any time, even during the academic session itself. Anna herself at times missing piling into my car for the trip to the very well-appointed classroom at the church. But she is by personality generally open to adult decisions, so she was ultimately accommodating with regard to the setting for our sessions.

And, as on this particular day, she is invariably enthusiastic. She is also precocious in the extreme. In her studies with me during her Grade 1 year, Anna learned to perform additive and subtractive operations, carrying and borrowing respectively with up to three digits. This was at a time when at school she was, and would have continued to be, confined to simple single digit operations. When I met with her on this day of 19 August 2013, she and I reviewed those processes, and also followed up on a bare beginning that we had made in learning multiplication.

I often find that students even at the middle school and high school levels who have been enrolled in the Minneapolis Public Schools, and who are enrolling at a late stage in the New Salem Educational Initiative, do not have full grasp of the multiplication tables that they need to know to do algebraic equations and to work with various geometric formulas. The more I witness the success that even my younger students have in moving from addition to its cousin, multiplication, the greater is my frustration with the skill deficits manifested by latecomers to the Initiative.

With Anna, for example, I explained that if you have nothing of any number, then by definition you have zero. Then I explained that if you have one of number, you have an amount equal to that number. She immediately grasped those explanations and thus had 20 answers of the 100 responses that will be most important in learning the multiplication table up through the number nine.

Then I had her count by two’s to 20 and by fives to 50, running her then through an explanation then of how this skill relates to multiplying by the numbers two and five. Anna also comprehended this explanation immediately and- -- BOOM--- she was on her way with 40 answers of just 100 that she will need to display knowledge of all of the important operations in the multiplication table up through nine. Based On my experience with other students enrolled during their early years of school in the New Salem Educational Initiative, Anna will have full grasp of the multiplication table and could thus explain and give the answers to many middle school and high school students.

Next, Anna and I read a selection from Aesop’s Fables entitled, “The Young Crab and the Mother.” Sentence construction and vocabulary in the version of the story that we read are pertinent to the typical Grade 4 reading. I had Anna read the story aloud first, correcting her at times on words such as “sideways” and “tripped” and “obediently.” Then I read the story aloud, pausing at times for Amya to pronounce the most challenging words. She then read the fable back to me, which she did to perfection. And, having listened to me explain how the instruction, “Do not tell others how to act unless you can set a good example” is a moral, she gave me her own paraphrase, “Don’t tell someone else to do something unless you can show them how to do it,” correctly telling me that a moral is “somethin’ that we’re s’posed to learn and use in life.”

So Anna and I had quite a day. Through her enrollment in the New Salem Educational Initiative, she is a Grade 1 student performing at the Grade 3 and Grade 4 levels.

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Now came Ezekiel’s turn. He proudly brought me his book and showed me that he had indeed read and completed questions on 45 selections. I had him pick two of these to read to me aloud. The first one was a story entitled, “Ups and Downs with Donut,” about a pet rabbit (name Donut) that disappears for a while at an amusement park but resurfaces to help family members conquer their fear of certain rides. I asked Ezekiel about several potentially new vocabulary items, but he needed only a slight clarification on the word, “hysterically,” for which he already had a general sense and had pronounced perfectly.

Ezekiel then selected, “Sea Dreams,” a poem about a child’s dream of creatures and other aspects of maritime life. From context, Ezekiel had figured out words such as “marine biologist,” “galore,” and “glee.” In terms of understanding the poem, Ezekiel additionally needed mainly my explanation of a reference to Jacques Cousteau. We talked about how the latter’s presence in the memory of the child rendering the poetic tale probably had not met Jacques Cousteau, so that his presence in the poem signaled that the child had in fact dreamed of the creatures and events rather than lived the experience exactly as conveyed.

I praised Ezekiel profusely for his level of reading comprehension, oral expression, and vocabulary. He beamed. I had intentionally begun with the skill of reading rather than math, so as to build his academic confidence as we turned to the skill that has for the last several months been more of a struggle for him. To my surprise, Ezekiel could correctly tell me the five most problematic products from the multiplication table ( 6 X 7, 7 X 7, 6 X 8, 7 X8, and 8 X 8), and he put those to use in practice exercises involving up to three digits top and bottom.

I let that be the extent of our work on math for the day. Ezekiel’s focus had been so astray for much of his Grade 5 year that recall of skills already acquired had at time been a difficult proposition. But today, his face was unstrained, his brain was clear, and he demonstrated that he is not at this time manifesting math anxiety.  We will build on that foundation of math recovery as Ezekiel enters his Grade 6 year and takes on more applications of fractions, decimals, percentages, rudimentary algebra, and geometry.

Anna and Ezekiel each demonstrated what they had learned and reviewed for the day to grandmother Sandy. Both of them beamed smiles that at this point symbolize different aspects of the New Salem Educational Initiative. Anna’s smile revealed the confidence in the student who has been fully challenged at the earliest grade levels and knows that she can do anything that school requires--- and more.  Ezekiel’s smile demonstrated the love and persistence that never go away, never give up, that follow a student through any travail that she or he endures.

I next caught up with mom Rolanda as she was talking to a friend outside. They were in fact discussing school options for Grade 6 students. Rolanda had been wanting to get Ezekiel into a charter school that would offer a smaller physical setting, new school staff, and a different student population. She asked me what I thought of Compton Middle School. I told her that several of my students had attended Compton and had spoken well of administrative policies and personnel at the school, and who in their reports upon my frequent questioning had described classroom instruction that I identified as often mediocre but occasionally rising as high as very good. I also told her that I thought if Ezekiel could handle a regular school setting, it would be a confidence booster.

Rolanda then spoke a line sounding a theme that I might have had to stress if she had not voiced the same sentiment: “And of course, Ezekiel will always learn what he really needs to by studying with you.” And then she continued, “Gary, you have been such a blessing to this entire family. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all that you have done. Anna’s skills are just amazing. Ezekiel is going to make it. And you have been such a help in just helping us to make it through some of the toughest months of our lives.”

I just smiled thankfully, and said, “You’re welcome, Rolanda. You know that I love all of you. Keep me posted as to how that back-to-school conference and the new student orientation at Compton go, and I’ll see you in a few days.”