Taking Care of Business

Portland, Oregon—When researchers go in search of big trends, underlying causes, or overarching theories, the individual student is often reduced to a hatch mark on a tally sheet. To give our readers a glimpse behind the statistics, a trio of hard-working sophomores agreed to share their perspective on life at Jefferson High School in Portland's inner city. As one of the metro area's most troubled schools, Jeff was "reconstituted" a couple of years ago—a new administration took over, the teaching staff was revamped, the curriculum was infused with new rigor. Now, staff and students are working mightily to rebuild their once-proud performing arts magnet.

Each of the three students interviewed here has found the inner drive to set and achieve his or her academic goals. They offer their outlook with intelligence, humor, honesty, and hope. The sophomore English and journalism teacher, who has just finished his second year at Jefferson, joined the conversation. Meet Shawntena Norman, Lamar Franklin, Bayo Arigbon, and Andrew Kulak:

Shawntena Norman: A lifelong Portland resident, Shawntena has followed her three older sisters through some of the city's most troubled schools. As a child, she experienced a lot of upheaval—"moving back and forth, here and there," often staying with her grandmother who, she says, "would always make a little spot" for her. "It's been tough, but it's cool," says the African American sophomore, who spends a lot more time focused on the future than the past. With one sister attending Alabama State University, Shawntena has set her sights on being the next collegian in the family. She's pulling up her grades and participating in the school performing arts program, where she recently brought her acting and singing talents to the stage in a production of Hair.

Lamar Franklin: Raised mainly in Anchorage, Lamar fooled around a lot in middle school, pulling D's and F's, not really caring. But when the family moved to Portland last year, the young man with Samoan ancestry decided it was time to hit the books. In spite of shifting family ties (his mom moved on to California for a job, leaving Lamar and his older brother in Portland with their stepfather), he achieved a 4.0 in his freshman year at Jefferson. He says: "I miss my mom, but, you know, I still got to take care of business." He likes math and is considering a career in engineering.

Bayo Arigbon: As the youngest of five siblings, Bayo grew up mostly in Portland (with a short stint in Stockton, California) with his mom and dad. This African-American student is proud of the top grades he's been pulling in high school, plus he sees the practical slant to doing well—scoring a scholarship to college. With an interest in computers, math, and business, Bayo aspires to become an entrepreneur, so that he can work for himself, make his own hours, basically "be the boss." In a tightly contested race, Bayo was elected president of the student council for the 2002-2003 school year.

Andrew Kulak: The son of educators, Andy Kulak knew early on that he would teach in the city. But this young teacher of European American lineage (Irish and Polish) wanted to pursue his calling in the multiethnic classrooms of a public school rather than in the cloistered environment of a private school like Jesuit-run St. Ignatius, the high school he attended in downtown Chicago. He taught in a suburban area of Michigan before following his heart to the city of Portland two years ago.

Northwest Education (to the youths): Think back on your elementary school years. Did you have a favorite teacher?

Shawntena: I did. Her name was Miss Heidelberg. She was my day-care teacher. Then she was my third-grade teacher, my fifth-grade teacher, she just always ended up being my teacher. She moved when I moved.

Shawntena: One who can relate, who understands, who kinda on your level, as a kid. Just down-to-earth, kinda.

Lamar: There was one teacher in my third grade that was real strict. Her name was Miss Richardson. For some reason I just liked her teaching, you know, it was balanced out and relaxed, and she made us stay on track and everything.

Bayo: My fifth-grade teacher was pretty good. She was nice, but she could be mean. We would get projects, they would be, like, real fun, but we would be learning, too. And she gave out candy. (They laugh.)

Bayo: She was strict, you know. I guess it was her making sure everybody got, like, ahead.

NW: This is a big debate among the researchers—how important is it for kids of different ethnic backgrounds to have teachers from the same background so that they understand their culture and serve as role models? I'm hearing you say that this is important, but that there are other important considerations as well.

Lamar: Kids want someone to relate to. Like if you can understand a kid, be their friend and their teacher, then I think that kids would learn more and be easier to teach.

Bayo: He's fun, and he's nice, too. One thing that stands out is that when we did our vocabulary in English class last year (with a different teacher), it was just like, here's your words, and you got to take your responsibility, study them, and everything. I did the studying, and then my mind would be blank on the test. The way Mr. Kulak does it, you know, I still remember some of the words if I see them in the books we read. If we have a vocabulary word, we write it down and we write the meaning and then we draw a picture. If you don't know the meaning right off the bat, you can just look at the picture and you'll know, because you're the one who drew the picture.

Lamar: I heard Mr. Kulak is a really good teacher. I talked to some other kids about that book, Macbeth—you know, Destin, he's like, "You should get Mr. Kulak, it's fun reading a book with him." Yeah, I wanted to have his class, but I never got that opportunity.

NW: But at the same time I think I'm hearing you guys say that you want to be challenged, you don't want a teacher to just come in and be your buddy.

Lamar: Yeah. But then it's good to have that relationship, too, you know what I'm saying?

NW: But reading Macbeth is tough. That's a college-level work of literature. (To Kulak) How do you approach Macbeth in a way that kids can relate to?

Kulak: We talked about Shakespeare as a person at that time in history. And we watched a documentary, Al Pacino's Looking for Richard, to get a sense of how people who work with Shakespearean actors approach this and how they struggle with it. Even people in the movies who've made all this money and are very successful still have these issues with trying to understand these words. Then when we came to Macbeth, it was about breaking it down. So first we looked at who the characters were, and then we looked at the scenes where things were going to be happening. We built journals together—converting things into your own words, your own interpretation, and also keeping track of words that were new to you and what context they were in, what do they mean. We have people reading with partners right now, and then they have dialogue about what they've read. I'm floating around and answering questions. There's a lot of self- discovery that happens. At the same time, I have my objectives as a teacher, and I want to see them met.

NW (to Kulak): Did you have any trepidation about coming to a school with a student population that's almost 85 percent minority?

Kulak: Not the slightest. This is the one school I wanted to work at in Portland, so I was very pleased.

Kulak: My father taught in Chicago Public Schools, and he would take me with him and I liked the schools he worked in. The energy was very different from the (private) schools I went to. To me, it was more of what high school energy was supposed to be. I always knew I wanted to work in a city school with a diverse population, and not in a suburban school or a private school where it would seem a lot more oppressive to me.

NW: I'm sure you are all very aware of some of the recent protests to the school board by the Education Crisis Team—the community members who are concerned about low performance at a number of schools in low-income neighborhoods. Jefferson is one of those schools. Do you feel that the education you're getting here is of high quality?

Shawntena: Actually, I do. I think we have some really good teachers here. Students are trying to improve their test scores and prepare for higher education.

Lamar: Yeah, like this year I have Mr. Johnson for English. He's real tough. We're doing speeches, essays, college stuff. First quarter I struggled to get a B. Next quarter I got a high B. And last quarter, I finally got an A in his class. He's a really good teacher. He challenges us a lot.

Lamar: Yes, there are kids that moved out after the first quarter. They felt they couldn't do that class. Other students that started to make good grades, like me, stayed in the class and now everybody got used to it. Everybody in the class right now is hard working.

Bayo: You see them all the time. They just be outside talking and stuff like that. But you don't see them in school, so you just put two and two together—maybe he dropped out, or how many years has he been a senior? or something like that. (Laughter.) I just continue to do my work so that won't happen to me.

Lamar: There's a couple of people that want you to skip school. But I feel like if you want to achieve, graduate, go to college, it's not so hard to do your work, come to school. That's basically what you've got to do, take care of that.

Bayo: There's people that want to do good, they just need that person to say, "Not this time, let's go to class." They need that person to force them to do their work if they're at home.

Lamar: I would just say that some people don't have that person to guide them and give them that push and be a positive role model.

Lamar: I don't really have one. But I just look at everything that's going on around me, and I don't want to be a bum. I want to go to college.

NW: Researchers suggest that some minority kids worry that if they try hard in school and get good grades, their friends will criticize them for "acting white." Have you heard that term and do you hear that attitude—that succeeding in school is a bad thing because it's a rejection of your own culture to try to be successful in the dominant culture?

Lamar: What you're saying is, "Have I ever heard other people say that we're acting white 'cause we're trying to succeed in life?" I never heard of that saying. And if I heard it, it would probably never bother me. I heard, like, if you're doing your work and getting good grades, they call you a "dork" or something.

Shawntena: I think right now that we, as African American students or whatever, that is showing some progress, it's not like we are trying to act white; it's just that we are starting to realize more, I guess, to take it seriously. And I wouldn't necessarily say "acting white" because there's a lot of African Americans out there doing the same stuff right now that other cultures are doing. We're starting to rise, if that's what you want to call it. So that's an accomplishment. We see what other people are doing—for example, Halle Berry and Denzel Washington winning the Oscars. So it's making us want to do more in life—if they can do it, we can do it.

NW (to Kulak): Have you observed a change in student attitudes toward achievement since you arrived?

Kulak: I've noticed a very significant change in the school this year over the last year. One of the things I see is leadership. Last year we lost a principal, and prior to that we had gone through a couple of principals, and it has a drastic effect on how we communicated to the students as a whole. This year, Jim Carlile was our interim principal, and he did a marvelous job. I know teachers felt a lot more comfortable knowing there was this solidity in the building. I think it helps the teachers communicate better with kids. It's happening on a subconscious level, but it's very much there. As far as the students go, last year I noticed in my classes more students choosing to go into alternative ed or Job Corps or something else. This year, that's down significantly. What I personally am doing differently is keeping my students aware of what's happening in the press and how the media are portraying our school in terms of test scores. And I tell them how numbers don't really reflect the kind of learning and the strength and integrity of students in the building. And I think that has an effect, as well.

Kulak: No. He only came in for one year. A new principal was hired, Larry Dashiell. He has worked in this building before, lives in the community, African American man, and has years as an administrator, not as a principal but as a VP.

NW: You said that it made a big difference having somebody who was able to provide "solidity" in the school. How important is it to have the right principal as the leader in the school?

Kulak: Earlier in my career I never thought it was that important, something I took for granted. I didn't see the disarray that can be caused when a principal doesn't have it happening on all the levels, or the administrative duties aren't spread out evenly enough so that it is an overload. I think that the solidity is one of those things that when it's working, you know it's working because everything else is running smoothly. But when it's not working, it's pandemonium, it's chaos. There are too many people who are feeling their needs are not being met within the building. It's strange, because I could not outline for you the things that the principal does, but I do know when it's working.

Bayo: No. I still have to set up a meeting with him about the bell schedule. I don't want it to change, and I came up with a third-party idea to present to him. It's good, too. I was speaking to the teachers, and they seemed like their strongest argument is they want to see the students for, like, the whole year. So I was thinking how they can do that—see the students through for the whole year—and us still have the 85-minute block.

Kulak (explains to the interviewer): The plan is to do a modified block of 55 and 90 minutes. So you would have 90-minute classes on two days of the week and then 55-minute classes the other three days.

Bayo: I didn't like that. I like the 85 minutes because, like, some of the time you pick up the assignment real quick and you can just start doing it. And then some of the time, you don't pick up the assignment quick. And it takes longer for the teacher to explain to the student how to do it the right way. That takes time, and if you got only 55 minutes some of the time, you are going to be rushed and not know what to do. You are going to leave without a full understanding, and that's going to be bad. That is just one of the arguments. I don't want to give away my political secrets. We got to set up a meeting.

NW: You all seem really hopeful about the future. Do you have other friends who think, "Well, it's not going to do me any good to work hard in school, because there's nothing out there for me"?

Lamar: I had a friend who went here last year with us and he was real smart, you know. He was real good in reading and in math, everything. For some reason, this year he stopped coming to school and when we asked him why, he was, like, "I just don't think it's worth it," or something. So now he's at home and he just sits there, but he reads a lot. I visit his house, and there are stacks of books, but then I was, like, "You can do that at school and learn more stuff, you know." But it is just weird to see him. It's a shame.

NW: So he hasn't said anything specific about why he felt school wasn't worth his time?

Lamar: He had told me that his brother didn't graduate from high school, but now he got a good job. So maybe he figures that, you know, he can drop out of high school and get a real good job. But I thought it was better to get your education.

Shawntena: Well, I have a lot of friends that are really smart. One friend went here last year, too, and she doesn't go here anymore. She always got good grades. But now, it's, like, a money thing to her. She has to have money all the time. She is one of them, "In school, I'm not making no money; so I'm gonna not go (to school) and make some money." So then you got the girls that's getting pregnant. Some of the girls do make it. Some of them have this child and are still going to school and maybe have a good job. And then there's some that just don't, they're struggling. But that's what they chose, so you can't really say too much about it. It's really sad to me. Then I know a lot of people that go to alternative schools, and it will be, like, you're going the easy route. I mean, it's cool you are still going to school, but you're not challenging yourself enough to really make it in life.

NW: Is there anything you'd change about school to help kids be more successful?

Bayo: I think they should, like, make it more convenient, start a little bit later. That would take care of tardies. Then you could have SSR (silent sustained reading) for everybody. That gives them a chance to read and catch up in the book. Like now, only certain teachers do it in English. And it seems like when students don't want to learn, the teachers are taking a lot of time to try to get them to learn. And while this is happening, other people need help. So the teachers just need to, like, "If you don't want to learn today, there's a whole bunch of other people who do want to learn." If they don't want to learn, just let 'em be.

Kulak: I would like to add to the previous statement about attributing increasing success to the SSR program that the English teachers started two years ago here. I think this is making a tremendous difference—I think it is paramount for increasing literacy skills so that students can read many different things and gain information on their own, detect biases, and all of that. I think that is a large part of what more successful teachers here are doing. As far as changing things, what I see as the most important thing is to cultivate that spark of ability. What I would like to see is a way for students to develop that inner voice, that internal motivation that tells them, "I want to be here, I need to be here."

Bayo: You talk to people from different schools and they put Jeff down. They say, "Well, Jeff is easy, you should be getting those grades if you go to Jeff." And they say, "Well, it's real easy, and you guys still get low ratings in the state." I think schools need to reflect more of everything, not just testing. I think that's wrong to stereotype the school because all schools are the same—school is school. School is what you make it. If people want to go to school, they are going to get it right, but if people don't want to go to school and they don't want to pay attention, then it's gonna show up. It can happen at any school. It's just the work ethic that people have.

"The Way We See It"

A number of promising notions for strengthening schools are embedded in the conversation with Jefferson High School sophomores Shawntena Norman, Lamar Franklin, and Bayo Arigbon, and their English teacher Andrew Kulak. Here's a distillation of key ideas:

The "best" teachers blend "strictness" (high expectations) with "understanding" (the ability to relate to kids with empathy and humor)
Learning is more lasting when teachers provide multiple avenues for absorbing the material (verbal, written, visual)
High expectations and challenging curriculum inspire students to push themselves toward excellence
Strong building leadership is critical to creating a cohesive school community that supports top-notch teaching and learning
Block scheduling helps students to gain greater understanding of material and form caring relationships with teachers
Daily silent sustained reading in high school boosts literacy skills (such as reading for information and detecting biases) and helps kids keep up in class
Opportunities to demonstrate achievement should go well beyond taking standardized tests
Students' work ethic must be cultivated as the driving force that will ultimately keep them moving forward

A strong work ethic keeps three top students at "Jeff" moving toward their goals despite the tribulations of their struggling urban high school

"The Way We See It"