Case Studies - Students

With patience, empathy, and simply good teaching practices, Morgan most importantly developed confidence. By the end of the school year, Morgan performed at the highest level on the math state tests, Advanced! Even more importantly, Morgan's newly developed confidence translated into her other classes, which she excelled for the first time.

I met Madeeja back in 2017, while teaching at a neighborhood high school in North Philadelphia. Madeeja came to the school in 9th grade. She was very at-risk. Madeeja had gotten kicked out of several schools, and was like many other young ladies growing up in North Philadelphia. She didn't know her father, and her mother was in and out of her life. She lived with her aunt. Like many "behavior problems," Madeeja was very smart, and I tapped into that.

I met Angel back in 2012 in math class while working at a turnaround high school in Denver, CO. Angel stood out from her peers, because she had an ankle monitor attached to her leg. She was 14. Everyone had given up on Angel, and I'm pretty sure she had given up on herself. She rarely came to school, and when she did, she was completely "checked out."

I quickly realized, as is usually the case with "behavior problems," that Joel was smart and actually pretty funny. When he attended class, I called on him to respond, in order to build some positive attention opportunities. Quickly, Joel's negative attention seeking behaviors significantly decreased, and we all got to see a different side of him!

I quickly realized that Amilio was smart and very capable of excelling in his studies. I gave Amilio leadership roles in the classroom to keep him moving in order to burn off some of his excess energy, which helped him. I also promoted him into a "student as teacher" role so that he could use his energy to assist his peers which also, obviously, helped him to remain on task and learn the content.