KIPP Philadelphia Schools

My apologies for the delay in posts; despite my plans to have a do-nothing sort of weekend, I ended up being much busier than I imagined. But don’t fret, that’s a good thing! Although I didn’t actually post anything, I spent some time thinking about what I might post and came to this decision: in each entry, I’ll try to start with some education related topic, before allowing myself to indulge a little in talking about my personal comings-and-goings of the last few days.

My duties at KIPP this week are not super interesting. They primarily involve scanning every single student’s file to a computer as an insurance policy against any sort of disaster. Natalie, the Managing Director of Operations at KIPP developed this fun (and, admittedly, necessary) project after another local charter school suffered from a fire and lost all their records.

So instead of talking about my personal experience at KIPP in this post, I’m going to attempt to explore some greater education issues that I’ve touched on a little previously. As I said before, one of the most important aspects of KIPP is great teachers. What they, and most educators across the country struggle with, is how to find those great teachers. Teaching skill is unlike skill in disciplines like math or science; although content knowledge is important, it’s close to impossible to quantify what makes someone a great teacher.

Dr. Martin Haberman has spent his life trying to do just that, however. He has conducted multiple studies and written countless articles on how to isolate what he calls the Star Teachers from all the rest. He’s developed a series of interview questions that address ten dimensions of teaching: persistence, organization and planning, values student learning, theory to practice, at-risk students, approach to students, survive in bureaucracy, explains teacher success, explains student success and fallibility. He admits, however, in an interview (that can be heard at www.kipp.org/00/audio/) that there are many elements of a good teacher that can’t be easily assessed in an interview setting.

At KIPP Philadelphia, much more credence is given to applicant’s sample lessons. However, in many of the other KIPP regions the initial phone interview is paramount in the process; their answers are scored on a rubric and their final score determines their future in the applicant pool. Teach for America uses a similar system. This, to me at least, seems to go somewhat against some of KIPP’s principles. Student-teacher interactions and the ability to enthuse a classroom are clearly not quantifiable and to be looking for specific things to be said in answers could be seen as equivalent to limiting students in certain ways – maybe a stretch, but something that’s been on my mind.

And now for the few people reading this that care about what I’ve been doing in my spare time the past couple days. After spending the night at Haverford last Friday and getting to see a number of friends, my housemate Katie and I found ourselves left to our own devices for most of the weekend. This turned out to be great; we spent pretty much the whole weekend together, hanging out, cooking and going on adventures. Saturday night we made our way to South Philly to a Haverford alum’s party at which the majority of the guests were teachers that were approximately 10 years older than me – a fun flashforward to my potential future. Unfortunately, upon leaving we got stuck in a rainstorm, ended up walking almost a mile and waiting on a street corner in Center City for a bus for over 20 minutes.

Which leads me to the tally I’m going to start keeping in order to try and prove that Seattle gets a bad and untrue rap for its rain. Number of times I’ve now been stuck in the rain in Philadelphia: 2 (in seven days).

First, a little more about what I’ll actually be doing this summer within the greater picture of KIPP Philadelphia. Throughout the semester and into this summer, I’ve been working primarily for the Director of Talent, Theresa. Theresa is basically responsible for hiring all the teachers and staff for all four KIPP Philadelphia schools – a huge job, especially with three of the four of them expanding by a grade this year. In addition to her hiring responsibilities, she’s also in charge of most of the HR duties for the organization.

The hiring process here at KIPP is a long one. Excellent teachers are pretty much considered the most essential part of the schools; once you have good teachers in place, the rest will follow. After submitting applications online (side note: the online application system is not the most streamlined, and one of my jobs is to try and help the less computer literate candidates along with their application), candidates proceed to a phone interview, then submit a video lesson, then have an in school interview and the final few candidates have their references checked.

So what am I doing? A lot of going through resumes to find strong candidates, creating contacts for prospective applicants, posting open job positions, emailing people with questions and, most exciting of all, rejecting people. Unfortunately (or probably fortunately for those who are being rejected), I don’t get to choose who makes the cut or not, but I do send the emails. Starting June 27th I will have some different duties, but I’ll get into those then mostly because I’m not 100 percent clear on what they’ll be.

Although I’ve been working at KIPP for awhile now, it’s been nice working here this summer because things are more relaxed. I don’t get handed a list that needs to be finished by the end of that day, so I have time to try other things. Some are typical work-y things, like sitting in on meetings, but others are a lot more fun. Today, for instance, I spent recess with the kindergarteners, getting my hula-hooping ability made fun of. They’re pretty adorable, even when they’re laughing at you.

The other part of my summer that I haven’t really touched on yet is the exploring Philly part. Going to Haverford and working at KIPP the past year have given me a few opportunities to check out the city, but I’m really excited to get to know the city better. I bought a bike on Tuesday and I’m quickly learning to navigate the city streets (lesson number one: avoid trolley tracks at all costs). I’m also taking advantage of any and all fun/weird/cool Philly events. For instance, last night I went to a “bike-in movie” on the top floor of a Whole Foods parking lot.

Tonight, my friend Kate came into the city from Haverford and we went to the Philly Night Market (www.nightmarketphilly.org/), a collection of the city’s food trucks and restaurant stands. So much good food – for dinner I had ginger lemonade, a portobello mushroom sandwich, a fish taco, and a plantain taco (yum). I took a picture, but the sandwich didn’t make it that long.

The best part was dessert, though, both because it might have been the best creme brulée I’ve ever had, but mostly because we got filmed for a new Food Channel show called “Sugar High,” starring the guy from “Ace of Cakes.” We struck up quite the rapport with him while ordering, and we were asked to sign waivers. So watch out for us. Just after we got our dessert, the sky darkened and I got hit with my first east coast thunderstorm! I spent about 15 minutes cowering in the subway station, then trekked home through the rain, hoping I wouldn’t be hit by lightning.

Hello all!

I apologize in the delay in my first post. I just returned to the United States last Friday after backpacking through Spain, France and Italy with three other wonderful Haverford students. Although leaving Europe was hard, I’m glad I have this summer to look forward too! Below is a picture of the four of us on the Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence.

Now I’m in Philadelphia though, and almost completely moved in to the West Philly home I’ll be sharing with six other Haverford students for the next two months. Waking up here this morning was strange; it was a new room in a new place but, magically, all of my things were there too!

Today was my first day at work, but before I delve into all things internship, I figure I should give a little bit of background. I’ve been working at KIPP Philadelphia one day a week for most of this past semester, after meeting a Haverford alum from the class of 2005 who works in the regional office at a CDO panel last October. I’ve known that I’d like to teach for awhile, but I’m also interested in exploring parts of the education system outside of the classroom. Meeting Kathryn was a huge stroke of luck. A simple email set up the opportunity for me to intern at KIPP, and I instantly loved it.

KIPP Philadelphia is part of a larger national organization of KIPP (“Knowledge Is Power Program”) schools, which were founded by Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, two Teach for America corps members in the mid ’90s. While teaching in urban Houston, they began to identify what methods worked and what methods did not. Based on their ideas and help from a few experienced teachers, they founded the first KIPP schools. (For a much more comprehensive and better written history of KIPP, check out “Work Hard, Be Nice,” a book by Jay Mathews)

KIPP soon exploded across the country, and now there are almost 100 schools in 20 states and D.C. Although they are open enrollment, they cater primarily towards the low-income and minority students that have typically struggled in school. All share certain characteristics, including a longer school day and school year, attendance and behavioral requirements and an end of year field lesson (for instance, all 6th graders at KIPP schools across the country spend close to a week in Utah and the Grand Canyon), but school leaders are encouraged to put their own spin on each school. The West Philly middle school that I spend most of my time in has a unique step dance program that all students participate in.

I am in no way able to give justice to the numerous achievements of the program here. For more specific information, feel free to ask me questions or check out the website (kipp.org/).

Tomorrow I’ll post more specifics about what I’ll be doing this summer. Until then, I’ll be trying to stay cool in the heat of my first east coast summer.