“I’m tired,” complained one student in Richard Cheng’s math class.
“I understand you’re tired, but it’s nine o’clock in the morning, and you still have nine hours more to go,” his teacher replied.
By the end of class, the sleepy student had fully woken up to the new math at his new school— so much that he broke out into song.
The student, let’s call him Jason, was sitting in a morning math class on Day 13 of school at the new Domus Academy, the first New Haven public school to be taken over by a charter school group. Domus, a not-for-profit social services agency that runs two charter schools in Stamford, took over the former Urban Youth middle school this fall as part of a citywide school reform drive. The school serves 48 kids in grades six to eight who failed in traditional school settings because of behavioral or social problems.
The new setting, on the second floor of a swing space on Hamden’s Leeder Hill Road, comes with a whole new set of numbers:
For starters, morning classes last 70 minutes each. The longer periods reduce transition times between classes, where kids can lose focus.
The school day is nearly 10 hours long. It stretches from 7:15 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The average ratio of students to teachers is 7 – 1. Students are grouped in four mixed-age homerooms, based on how they score on literacy and numeracy tests, as well as on social factors, said Mike McGuire, the school “director,” or principal.
The theme of Jason’s homeroom is “Respect.” There are 10 kids in grades six, seven and eight. The homeroom groups spend most of the day together, traveling between classroom to learn different subjects.
As the Respect squad arrived at the math classroom last Wednesday morning, only seven of the 10 were present. Two would arrive later to school, and would be held in a so-called “problem-solving” room to work individually, so they wouldn’t disrupt class by barging in late. A third, who was known as the bully at Urban Youth, had punched someone on the bus. He sat waiting for a meeting with his mom.
In Cheng’s math class Wednesday, a “floating” support teacher sat in the back with an eighth-grader, who McGuire said reads on the kindergarten level and needs extra help. So the ratio of kids to teachers ended up being 7 – 2.
That meant a lot of attention for class, which was all boys, and no sneaking in any naps on the desk.
“Sit up! Sit up!” directed Cheng as Jason laid his head down on his desk during a lesson on fractions.
Cheng (pictured), a 2008 college grad, just completed two years of teaching through Teach For America (TFA) at Domus’s middle school in Stamford. Well-versed in Domus’s ways, he works as the school’s director of curriculum. That means supporting the all-new, eight-person teaching staff, four of whom are first-time teachers in TFA.
Last Wednesday it meant filling in for the school’s math teacher, who was out sick. Domus never calls the public school hotline for substitute teachers, McGuire said — “our kids are skeptical of new people.” If one of the teachers can’t cover a class, it will be covered by Cheng or McGuire, who’s a former math teacher himself.
Cheng’s goal for Wednesday’s class was to teach kids how to tell if a fraction is greater or less than one. He used a no-excuses teaching style — calling out kids by their name, speaking with urgency, cutting short distractions before they grew into problems — combined with active exercises, to drill the concept into student’s heads in at least four different ways.
When Cheng started teaching, most of the kids were weighed down with morning droopiness. He introduced the concept: If the number on the top of the fraction (the numerator — “Write that down!”) is less than the one on the bottom (the denominator), then the fraction is less than one. And vice versa.
“This is hard!” protested Jason.
“It’s not hard — you’re just not trying enough,” Cheng insisted.
Cheng tried using a sense of mystery to garner more interest.
“This is a secret,” he said, moving to close the door. “No one knows that but you guys. Don’t tell Mrs. Burke I told you this. She’ll be mad.”
Then came the multi-formed practice to reinforce the concept. First, kids called out the fractions that were greater than or less than one. Then Cheng illustrated the concept using the two sleepiest kids.
“Come here, Lazy!” Cheng called to Jason, who’s one of the bigger kids in the class. Then he beckoned the smallest kid in the class, Shaymell.
He told them to go to a large table in the back of the room and “show me a fraction that’s greater than one.”
“I’m tired,” protested Jason, who earlier had been wrapping his long-sleeved Domus Academy uniform shirt around his head.
Cheng didn’t take the excuse: “It’s nine o’clock in the morning, and you still have nine hours more to go.”
The teacher’s math was a little off — Jason had only eight more hours to go — but the student got the message. Jason, the numerator, climbed on top of the table. Shaymell, the denominator, crawled beneath.
Between drills, Cheng paused for a word of encouragement: “Believe it or not, we’re learning eighth-grade stuff.”
He worked with a sense of urgency — “we don’t have that much time to learn this!” — and managed to steer kids away from a tendency toward distraction.
“Can I step out?” one student gingerly asked. “To pass gas?”
Cheng denied the request. “Control yourself,” he said in a stern, but not a mean, tone.
During another exercise, Cheng used a competition between man and calculator to hammer home a point. Given a daunting fraction on the board, students typed in the numbers on a calculator, while Cheng used his mind, to see whether it was greater than or less than one. The human always won.
He repeated the exercise, letting a kid take his place as the human competitor. The contest drew a snicker from the back seat about that kid being easy to beat in a race. One boy said his feelings were hurt. Cheng stepped in.
“It’s not a big deal,” Cheng asserted, interrupting a series of “he said,” “he said.”
“It’s over,” Cheng declared. And he managed to make that statement true.
On Day 13 of school, his students had already learned to apologize with the rapid-fire pace of a math quiz.
“Apologize!” Cheng said, pointing to one kid.
“I’m sorry,” came the quick response.
“Apologize!” Cheng followed with the other kid.
“I’m sorry.” The student didn’t miss a beat.
Cheng kept kids’ attention by pacing around the class, and giving students the chance to move, too.
“Show me a fraction that’s less than one!” he directed. Shaymell and Jason obliged (pictured).
He got them moving again in a classroom game designed to emphasize the vocab of the day. “Numerator” meant stand on your desk. “Denominator” meant crouch underneath.
“I hate aerobics,” complained Shaymell. Still, he followed suit.
“Get up there, numerator!” Cheng called out. By they end of the exercise, sleepy groans were replaced with light laughter.
The giggles subsided as Cheng, with the mastery of a spell-caster, ordered a “silent class in three, two, one — done.”
Heads whipped around to the front of the room just in time for the final count. (Click on the play arrow at the top of the story to watch.)
At the end of all the action, kids took a quiz on the new concept. They had to copy down four fractions and determine if they were greater than, or less than, one. Cheng put up a piece of paper to honor the kids who achieved “mastery,” which he defined as a grade of 80 percent or higher.
All the kids made it on the list.
“Lazy” became Boasty, as he crowed his result.
“Mr. Cheng — I got a hundred!”
“Of course you did,” Cheng replied.
The achievement prompted Jason to break out in song.
“I am perfection!” he crooned, holding the last syllable as he pumped a hand in the air.
The seven kids lined up at the door to tackle their next number: 70 minutes of social studies.
Past Independent stories on Domus Academy:
• Parents Get The Drill For An Experimental Year
• City To Double TFA Hires
• Two Failing Schools Aim High
• Domus Gets New Domus
• Challenges Await “Turnaround” School
• Mr. Paul Delivers The Pants
• “Turnaround” Work Begins At Urban Youth
• Schools Get Graded — & Shaken Up