On a Thursday morning at St. Thomas the Apostle School in Los Angeles' Pico-Union district, Erin Nowak is explaining to her seventh-grade history class the difference between writing in the first person versus the third person. The teacher wants the junior high kids to compose an end-of-the-year paper about an author, scientist, explorer, ruler or some other famous figure from the Renaissance.
But there's that creative catch.
"Write like you're the person," she says, stopping her stroll around the classroom among desks pushed together to form a half-dozen islands of students dressed casually today in their school navy sweats and shorts. "If you were William Shakespeare, write as if you are William Shakespeare. And when you present the report, you have to be that person, too."
A few of the 32 students raise their eyebrows over this last mind-bending assignment. But the majority just take it in stride, accustomed to Mrs. Nowak's innovative homework assignments.
"I'm going to give you guys about eight minutes to come up with a list of people from your textbook," she continues. "You can talk to each other, share ideas."
"What if we know someone who's not in our book?" asks a girl.
"Fine, that's good."
Most of the students feverishly start scrolling through their history books, while others throw out names to each other.
"Make sure the people are from the period of the Renaissance, OK?" Mrs. Nowak shouts over the intense discussions going on in the rectangular room of the old three-story school that was renovated last summer. "And make the list as long as you can."
Looking down at the progress of one group, she says, "Somebody has 17. How are the rest of you doing?" Then she threads her way to another group, bending over a girl who doesn't look up. "Oh, my goodness! She has 31," she exclaims.
When Nowak's checked out all the groups, she walks back to the front of the room, standing there with her back to the whiteboard. "Some of you are really thinking outside the box," she says, but the seventh-graders don't seem to be listening. They're too busy turning pages in their texts, sharing names with each other and, most of all, writing like their young lives - or, at least, their upcoming summer vacations - depend on it.
"OK, pens down, eyes up here," the teacher says. "How many people got more than 30?" When 10 hands fly up in the air, she declares, "That's really wonderful. Great job."
Then she asks, "How many had more than 20?" Most of the students raise their hands this time, and get an "Excellent!" from their teacher for their effort.
Finally, Nowak inquires, "How many got more than 10?" At the show of seven or eight hands, she remarks, "Good!" with the same enthusiasm.
Amazing stories
"I guess I could have said, 'Here, look up this person,' or 'Here's a list.' I mean, I want to teach them how to do it. And the reason for having them pretend to be that person is I like to put a creative edge on it as much as I possibly can," Nowak explains during a break. "I like to do dramatic stuff, and also visual stuff like comic strips or posters of a certain period - any way that I can get kids to access something where they can be a little bit creative and still get the content.
"Because I hate the idea that people think history is boring, 'cause really it's these amazing stories of the past," she says. "So I like to bring that to them and make the historical figures as real as possible."
The 34-year-old native Angeleno, who has been perfecting her teaching craft at St. Thomas for six years, also likes to break lessons down into classroom tasks that can be done in 10 or 12 minutes. The short assignments, along with walking around, allows her to spot immediately students who are having problems. And the UCLA graduate is not afraid to let her socially-minded junior high kids work in groups and chatter away, because she has the classroom management skills and confidence to reestablish you-can-hear-a-pin-drop order whenever she wants.
"I like to bring in critical-thinking questions to most units that I do," she points out. "So instead of just asking 'What happened?' I want them to evaluate or make a judgment about things. I want them to develop opinions about things. You can call it the Socratic method. But it's just like asking more questions than giving answers, and letting them learn through answering those questions and asking more questions - seeing where it takes them.
"There have been things that I tried my first year that I've kept and worked with and honed and made better," she reports. "I don't think there's anything that I haven't changed since I started teaching. Sometimes classes are different. Something works brilliantly for one class, and you try the exact thing the next year and for some reason it doesn't work. So you've got to tweak it and change things."
What the teacher doesn't like is sitting behind her corner desk piled high with papers to correct and composition notebooks to read. That sedentary reluctance goes a long ways towards explaining the homemade purple "Congratulations, Mrs. Nowak" sign on a nearby wall with the names Katy, Edgar, Brian, Joshua and Lorie written underneath in different colors. A few are even inside lovingly-drawn hearts.
For Erin Nowak was just named the Education Consortium of Central Los Angeles USC Teacher of the Year for 2009, the seventh St. Thomas faculty member to earn the urban education honor.
"I know that there have been a lot of St. Thomas principals and teachers over the years who have created an environment that is really quite special," she says. "You know, I don't think it's run just like other schools, but it's really sort of a community.
"Yes, our purpose is to educate students. But it's educating the whole person, which is what Catholic education is all about, that's so apparent here. And if you jell well with that, if that philosophy or spirit makes sense to you and you stick around here, it makes you the best teacher you can be. So I think it's a balance of like structure, but also giving teachers room to be creative and use their own strengths."
Research, research...
Back in history class, Nowak asks her students to choose five people from their lists and write one or two sentences about why each is important. She explains, "When I say 'important,' how have they affected our lives? How have they changed history?
"I know we're all social beings, but I'm asking you to do this individually," she goes on. "It's important to stop talking now and focus so we can get to the next stage of this project."
Which is to pick three from the compiled list of five to research, and then write down reasons for these particular historical characters. Research is learning something you didn't know about before, she notes, before adding that one of the chosen should be "kind of a mystery." By tomorrow, she says, she'll make the final decision on who each student is to profile.
"Again, both the written and oral reports are to be done in the first person, which has a little bit more of a dramatic quality about it," she says. "And for the oral presentation, you need to come dressed as a person in that period might come dressed.
"But I don't want you to go out and spend lots of money to buy a costume," stresses the teacher. "The point is to be creative to find at home something that looks like what the historical figure would wear."
The students diligently go about narrowing their lists and writing down their reasons. One by one they stand up, walk to Nowak and hand her their big three final choices, knowing they'll be pretending to be one of these Renaissance luminaries in the very near future.
And, one by one, she says: "Thank you, Christian … thank you, Iris … thank you, Marilyn ..." until she holds 32 sheets of paper in her hands. |