Raul Sanchez-Ruiz: Grade 6 Through Grade 11 in the New Salem Educational Initiative

Raul Sanchez-Ruiz

An Experience in the New Salem Educational Initiative From Grade 6 through Grade 11

A Case of the English Language Learner Enrolling in the
New Salem Educational Initiative Just in Time

December 2013 Update for Donors and Others Interested in the New Salem Educational Initiative

Raul Sanchez-Ruiz enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative in the spring of 2009, in the midst of his Grade 6 year of school enrollment at Sheridan K-8 School in Minneapolis. He came to the program upon the recommendation of his aunt, Carla Ruiz, who had witnessed the rapid academic progress of her three sons over just a three-month period. The recommendation went to Carla’s sister, Magdalena, Raul’s mother, a factory worker who speaks only very, very limited English.

When Raul came into the New Salem Educational Initiative, he was dealing with a host of personal and academic issues. At school, he was acting out with great frequency, often getting suspended, and was upon the recommendation of school officials attending anger management counseling sessions. He was failing all of his classes and was by report totally lost in math.

Thus it was in March of 2009 that Raul Sanchez-Ruiz first started attending weekly two-hour academic sessions in the New Salem Educational Initiative. At first, I reserved that late Wednesday afternoon time exclusively for him. By the following academic year, with enrollment beyond full, I brought in two younger students (both Grade 3), positioning them in another room and floating myself between the two rooms, giving rapid-fire assistance and inducing fast-paced learning for all three students.

Raul’s most critical academic deficit in the course of his Grade 6 and Grade 7 years was in math, a subject in which he had been allowed to move forward in school while learning very little. Upon enrollment in spring 2009, Raul did not know how to borrow (regroup) in subtractive exercises; he did not know many of his multiplication tables; he had not a clue as to how to do even simple division problems, much less long division; so that mastery of rudimentary material in fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions, and simple probability were--- at this juncture--- impossible.

So we went to work. By the end of his Grade 6 academic year, Raul was adept at multi-digit addition and subtraction, in exercises both of calculation and application. At any given time, he could respond to my prompting so as to recall products (multiples) for factors in the multiplication table for numbers zero through ten. Some of these had a tendency, though, to slip away; thus it was through constant review that Raul came, by Grade 8, to know firmly and with immediate recall the products for 6 x 7, 6 x 8, 7 x 7, 7 x 8, and 8 x 8--- those that for many years had been problematic for him.

By that Grade 8 year, Raul could now draw upon such basic math skill to work out many types of problems that prior to enrollment in the New Salem Educational Initiative had constituted a mysterious and unknown world. He could do calculation and application for a wide variety of problems involving multi-digit addition, subtraction, and multiplication; and he had found the key for opening the door into the world of long division.

By the end of academic year 2010-2011, Raul Sanchez-Ruiz could now perform mathematical tasks actually required at the Grade 8 level: With the critical sequential basic skills under control, he could now figure percentages and do various calculations and applications involving ratios, proportions, and simple probability.

Remarkably, Raul was at this juncture performing fully at grade level in math. And as his academic frustration at school abated, and his relationship with me deepened, Raul no longer had any anger issues manifested as inappropriate behavior at school. Raul was on the “B” honor roll, his behavior was exemplary, and he was fully prepared to enter Grade 9 as a student well-positioned for high school. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Raul Sanchez-Ruiz, Scholar of Shakespeare

During rides to and from Raul’s home and New Salem Missionary Baptist Church (where l conduct all academic sessions, except for a few held in students’ homes), we talked about all manner of topics, as I became aware of this young man’s insatiable curiosity:

We would, for example, pass a billboard advertising the services of a DUI attorney, which would lead to a succession of questions from Raul as to the meaning of “DUI,” the laws pertinent to blood alcohol level, the penalties for conviction, and the sort of education required to become an attorney.

“Oh, and what other kinds of lawyers are there?” Raul asked in continuing this conversational dialectic.

I would then explain real estate, entertainment, mergers, matrimony, and criminal topics as examples of areas of expertise in which a given attorney might specialize.

“And how does the education for an attorney compare to that of a doctor?” Raul would ask.

I thereupon would explain that medical school takes a bit longer and involves periods of internship and residency before certification.

Knowing that I am originally from Texas, Raul asked one day, “Say, I saw somewhere that Texas was once its own country. Is that true?”

So I explained that yes, Texas was a republic for nine years before gaining entry as the 28th state of the United States in 1845. And that in turn would lead to a discussion of the requirements for statehood, prospects for Puerto Rico becoming a state, the exact meaning of the term, “republic,” the difference between “republic” and “democracy,” the meanings of other terms for political systems, when in history certain political forms came into existence--- and we would still be talking as we arrived at his home (the discussion this time had occurred upon return; we had already covered other matters en route to New Salem).

En route to and from New Salem, I am always asking my students what good books they have been reading. One day after I asked Raul this question, I got a fortuitous question in return:

"And what have you been reading?”

“Hey, thanks for asking. Actually, I’m a huge fan of Shakespeare, and I’m forever trying to decide if Hamlet or King Lear is the greater tragedy. I recently reread each of these great plays.”

This engendered a whole host of questions that resulted in my passing a great deal of information on to Raul about the Bard: from where he hailed; the founding of the Globe Theater; the 37 plays divided among tragedies, histories, and comedies; the 154 sonnets; the two narrative poems; and a few quotations that I have committed to memory.

“So which one?”

“Huh?” I replied to a question that Raul posed in isolation after my delivery of a short lesson in Shakespeare and his universe.

“Which play do you think is better, King Lear or Hamlet ?

“Oh, yeah,” I remembered, “I had almost forgotten I raised that question. The thing is, a good number of people think that King Lear is even better than Hamlet. King Lear is such an audacious character; he is singularly memorable, and yet his character is very recognizable for the rashness and pettiness that leads him on his downward spiral. But for me, I just can’t let go of the sheer magnificence of numerous soliloquies in Hamlet. And the soaring beauty of the language is just stunning.”

“Could I read it?” Raul asked.

“Which one?”

“Hamlet.”

“Sure. I’ll tell you what. If you promise me that you will utilize the glossary and read the whole play in the original language, I’ll give you a copy that you can keep.”

“Okay.”

“You’ll read the whole thing? The language is called Elizabethan, after the queen who was reigning after James II died toward the latter decades of Shakespeare’s life. It’s different, but terrifically elegant as rendered by Shakespeare. It’ll take patience. You’ll do it--- read Hamlet in the original?”

"Yes.”

At our next academic session, I presented a copy of Hamlet to Raul. He went to work and read the whole play in two weeks.

“So, how did you like it?” I asked.

“It’s the best thing I’ve ever read."

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Overcoming the Challenges of the English Language Learner

This trajectory from angry, failed Grade 6 student, to an academically engaged student reading Shakespeare with full understanding is all the more remarkable, given the fact that Raul was still classified as an English Language Learner who spoke only Spanish at home when he first enrolled in the New Salem Educational Initiative.

Economically challenged English Language Learners (ELL, in the official jargon) face even more challenges than do poor kids in general. Those of us who come from reasonably well-educated middle class (or above) families have enormous advantages over poor kids from families of little education. The words that we hear, and the ideas to which we are exposed, give us the advantage of several years’ worth of knowledge over kids of poverty. If frequent familial dysfunction is added to the mix, the problems are compounded greatly, and if English is not heard in the home, the problems can be insuperable for young people who do not get aggressive academic assistance.

Raul Sanchez-Ruiz came to me just in time. The task of overcoming academic deficits gets much harder as a student moves into middle school, and by the time a student gets to high school the life script is typically written. For poor kids, especially those from one-parent homes or from families with significant dysfunction, the script holds, at best, another spoke on the cycle of poverty; at worst, that script calls for life running the streets and onto a path that can well lead to prison.

We grabbed hold of Raul’s worst struggles in math and solved those and his attendant anger management issues within two years. By grade 8, he was functioning at grade level in all subjects and had landed on the “B” honor roll. By Grade 9 he was reading Shakespeare. By Grade 10, Raul was cast in the part of Albany (husband to King Lear’s eldest daughter, Goneril) in our compact presentation (with all original Shakespearean lines) at the June 4, 2013 Annual New Salem Educational Initiative Banquet.

Raul has made three trips now to the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, Minnesota, seeing Midsummer Night’s Dream in summer 2011, King Lear in summer 2012 and Twelfth Night (which he also read with me) in summer 2013. In autumn 2012, Raul read (again, this time with several students and myself) and then saw Hamlet at the Jungle Theater in the Uptown area of Minneapolis.

Raul still struggles from time to time in math. He got poor advice from a high school counselor (before I could intervene) and was placed in a math course over his head as he began high school. We constantly scramble to keep his head above water in mathematics. But he makes “A’s” and “B’s” in everything else and has passed all Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments (MCAs) necessary for graduation.

I now have Raul enrolled with me in a one-on-one Cambridge/ Oxford style tutorial that I reserve variously for advanced students; students in the late stage of high school when ACT exams must be taken and so many other details must gain attention; and students for whom there remain significant needs.

Ironically, in Raul’s case, although he is most definitely an advanced student for the academic challenges that he has met and for his keen intellectual drive, he also still has significant academic needs. And, in double irony, I am not most worried about mathematics. Math is very concrete. The types of mathematics problems that will be on the ACT are no mystery.

I am most worried about Raul’s performance in his areas of academic strength involving verbal skills. Despite the fact that Raul is an avid reader and gobbles up material that I place with him; even though he sits with me and learns advanced vocabulary item after advanced vocabulary item; regardless of Raul’s excellent reading comprehension when he is master of the relevant vocabulary---- there are still words that come up that he does not know, that even now can stun me.

A student who has mastered words such as “truculent,” “quintessential,” “excoriate,” “paragon,” and “ameliorate”--- may stumble over more pedestrian vocabulary such as “meddle,” “indifferent,” “ trod,” “squabble,” or “paternal” because such words have just not happened to come up in the voluminous readings that we have done together--- and because he most certainly has not heard these words (all of which my own son, Ryan, knew by the time he was in Grade 4) at home.

Such is the challenge faced by students who live in immigrant families that speak a language other than English at home. Raul has had extraordinary assistance, and he has achieved so much. He is on the academic road leading to matriculation at a good college or university. But in the course of this next year and a half, we will continue our aggressive effort to advance Raul’s vocabulary, fill his head with ideas from across the liberal arts curriculum, sharpen his writing and research skills, and do everything necessary to assure his success once he gets to college.

The only question will be whether or not we can get him ready at that level of success on the ACT that will allow Raul to attend a first-tier selective college, or whether he will have to settle for a little less prestige.

However that may be, Raul is thriving. He is no longer angry. He is alive in a world of ideas and intellectual pursuit. He soaks up all of the information that I convey to him and then asks for more. He aspires either to be a photojournalist or a history teacher. He will succeed mightily at either profession.

All of this would not have been remotely possible if Raul had not entered the New Salem Educational Initiative five years ago and undergone the kind of aggressive skill and knowledge advancement that participation entails.

And Raul’s enormous progress would not have been imaginable without the support of the wonderful donors who have made his participation in the New Salem Educational Initiative possible.

So to all of those donors, I say,

“Be proud of Raul, and what you have wrought.”

Be proud of yourselves as you celebrate the reclamation of a human life now destined for a bright future.