Entering the Philbrick on the second day of the school year, I was struck by the welcoming bulletin board: “We went to college and you can too!” with teachers’ photos forming a bar graph above the schools they’d attended.
The Philbrick is a small school serving about 150 students, primarily from Roslindale and Mattapan. Everyone gathers on the playground before entering the building for a whole school meeting – announcements read by a student, the Pledge of Allegiance, birthday greetings, and a recitation of the school’s three expectations: “Show respect. Work hard. Be kind.”
In the first room I visited, fourth graders in Paula Morgado-Piña‘s class were standing in a big circle, playing a game to learn one another’s names: each student would come up with a body movement to accompany his or her name, and the whole class would repeat it. Stacey Isles-Brako‘s first graders were doing self-portraits, while second grade teacher Erik Berg was modeling how to select a “just right” book. It was great to see independent reading as part of every day’s activities, rather than the packaged reading programs BPS has been pushing for the past several years.
In science, Erin Flynn was introducing a unit on weather by having the children draw a picture of their favorite kind of day, make a graph with their drawings, then read and talk about the graph as a class. It was an oppressively humid day with no breeze or fan in the basement science room, so I was surprised that “hot” was the choice of most students – with “freezing” the next most popular!
Emily McNeal‘s third graders were comparing Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters with Cinderella as part of a unit on “fractured” fairytales from different cultures. Fifth grade students in Barbara Durkin‘s class were practicing how to walk through the halls, enter the cafeteria, get lunch, and recycle waste.
Most classes at the Philbrick have two adults working with the children, Boston Teacher Residency interns and other teaching assistants, which makes inclusion a lot more successful. An active parent group provides workshops and curriculum-based family nights throughout the school year. This is a school where everyone pitches in to create a welcoming, supportive learning community.
Please invite me to YOUR school this year!
Amika Kemmler-Ernst, Ed.D.
amika45 (at) comcast.net