Emily Hays Photos
Sophomores tune into their virtual class from their Hillhouse classroom.
Hillhouse sophomore Jazmin Townsend leaned forward in her desk to whisper an observation from the text into her microphone.
Half the class was sitting in the room with her. Half was online. They all contemplated how to keep the virtual conversation going after they heard her say: “I think one interesting fact is that after it was cooked, the dumpling became alive.”
The students were in Chevaunne Breland’s elective writing class.
Breland has chosen one approach to hybrid teaching now that in-class learning has returned partway in New Haven: staying largely virtual. Her class is much closer to a remote class than a pre-pandemic, in-person class. A recent visit to the class showed how that approach works out.
“I try to consistently engage the online students simultaneously. I ask them to share ideas with each other, to try to create that community of learners that has been missing during the pandemic,” Breland said.
James Hillhouse High School students returned to a hybrid of in-person and remote learning on April 5. Some students elected to stay remote.
Breland’s elective class was watching Bao, a Pixar short film by director Domee Shi. As Townsend noted, it is about a dumpling that comes to life. The cook treats the dumpling like a baby, smoothing out its face when it gets picked up by a dog.
The class started with students rating their feelings about parent-student relationships on an interactive Powerpoint: Should teenagers always respect their parents, only respect their parents when their parents respect them, or never respect their parents?
Most of the class chose the “always respect” option. Four of 15 chose the conditional option. No one chose the “never” option.
Breland asked the class to watch Bao with those relationships in mind. Then she asked them to record themselves saying an interesting fact about the video to a virtual bulletin board.
The class stayed quiet, contemplating their screens.
“We’re saying, not typing?” 16-year-old Dyrail Reddick confirmed.
A’Lice Bradley, 16, considers her virtual assignment.
Jazmin Townsend was the only in-person student to break the silence to record her fact. The remote students seemed to be less shy, because Breland soon announced that most students had recorded their videos.
Then Breland started unpacking the video with her in-person students. Reddick noted that the film is about a parent-child relationship. Alexis Williams pointed out that the conflict started when the dumpling wanted to do different activities than the mother, and the mother kept trying to bring him back to her side.
Sasha Cohen Cox explained that the end of the video showed that the dumpling was a metaphor for the woman’s actual son.
“How did the mother feel?” Breland asked.
“She didn’t like that he was growing up too fast,” A’Lice Bradley responded.
English teacher Chevaunne Breland.
The next two class discussions were virtual. Students used another online tool to briefly argue whether teenagers or parents show more respect to the other. Each student had to choose one side or the other.
Breland scrolled through and read out the responses. Some students thought teenagers were more respectful in general. They had to be, because their parents had all the power in the relationship. Some thought parents were more respectful because they grew up in a more respectful time period. One student thought teenagers are disrespectful mostly as they try to establish their own identities.
Then students got to Breland’s central question. What is Domee Shi saying about people in general through the film? Breland posted her own sticky note on the virtual bulletin board to get students started. These sticky notes would become the thesis statements for students’ reaction papers, due in five days.
“People in general are afraid of change,” Breland typed.
Dyrail Reddick: This is an intense class.
This is the moment the meaning of the film clicked for Reddick. He liked Bao less than other videos the class has watched; he felt the communication in the film was too subtle and too confusing. Other films had clearer communication styles, he said.
“Ms. Breland is hard core. It’s not the easiest class,” Reddick said.
He is grateful to be studying in-person, so he can get most of the assignments done in class, he said. He has no chance to fall back asleep as he might in his own bed.
He added that he wishes Breland would give a lighter workload and be more flexible according to student needs. In addition to the way remote school has stressed students’ mental health, Reddick is fighting an unfair series of life circumstances. He has been bullied for his sexuality since kindergarten; he would get in trouble for trying to take revenge on the people who called him homophobic slurs.
Then in 2016, Reddick’s father was murdered. Around the same time, two of his grandparents passed away and one of his mother’s close friends was murdered.
At the time, Reddick was attending Elm City College Prep Middle School, a school under the Achievement First charter network. He stopped turning in his work, and the school held him back a grade in response. Three years later, he still feels hurt that no one listened to what he was going through. He is still looking for a way to graduate at the same time as peers his age.
“As I grew up, high school is one of the things that changed me. Colleges are going to want to see why I was suspended on this certain day. I made a big change,” Reddick said.
Repping Hillhouse
Breland is a Hillhouse alum. After graduating from the high school, she attended Georgetown University for her bachelor’s degree and then Yale for her master’s in urban education.
Now a star New Haven Public Schools teacher, Breland has been nominated twice for district-wide teacher of the year awards. She has also won a T.A.P.S. Award as an outstanding teacher, administrator, parent or support staff member (hence the acronym). She is dedicated to student writing and helped organize the inaugural issue of Elm City Sage this April.
“Our community creates independent thinkers and learners before they get to college, so they can navigate college with a [unique] level of confidence,” Breland said.
The district has already solved the main problem she saw with Hillhouse in its response to Covid-19 remote learning: Breland was never sure whether students had computers at home; now every student in New Haven Public School has their own laptop or tablet.
She remembers transferring from the private, Foote School to Hillhouse to join the basketball team. (Her coaches were Kermit Carolina and Catrina Hawley-Stewart.)
She remembers Hillhouse pep rallies fondly, as well as the interactive lessons in her AP Psychology class.
“You fall in love with being here,” Breland said.
Breland has set up her curriculum carefully to prepare students for how important writing will be in their future lives. She worked with an administrator to establish the writing elective. She starts students off with very structured essays. As they stop asking her how to start, she lets them experiment more with the structure. She has students read and correct one another’s work to show them the real audiences they will face one day.
She chose Bao as part of her quest to both find materials that resonate with her students and expose them to people they have yet to meet. She has found that short, visual texts work best for her students as they weather the pandemic.
“With social media, you either get it or not. With these videos, they have to apply rewatching skills that they will need as lifelong learners,” Breland said.
Previous coverage of changes in public school classrooms in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic year: