Also in the fall of 1995, Beverly Craig, the first grade teacher at St. Peter Lutheran, North Ridge, mentioned to me that her son Ken Craig was teaching 9th grade math to 8th graders at St. Matthew Lutheran in NT. I asked why we didn't have that at North Ridge.
In a matter of hours I would volunteer to teach this class at North Ridge. My youngest, Jeremiah, was born that fall, so I offered to teach the course beginning in January after Christmas. I also was only available M-W-F, so we would meet three afternoons per week for a little more than 1 hour, after which I would drive my kids home from school.
I explained to the parents that I could not make any promises under the circumstances, but that at least each student would get a head start on 9th grade math when they went on to high school.
When I started in January I was in for a few surprises. The valedictorian from the previous year was struggling with math, and eventually would drop out of Regents-level classes at Starpoint. Why? K-4 at North Ridge were outstanding. The 5th-6th grade teacher was too busy working on his next career to be of much use to his students. And, the 7th grade teacher hated math. A parent named Rhonda told me the kids hardly had any math at all in 7th grade. Their teacher would save math for the end of the day, and usually would not get to it.
The above text was supplied to me by Wilson High School. It is a great text. Unfortunately, it is about 1,000 pages, and working through the text, page by page, was unworkable.
One night in January I went for a long run, and came up with a plan. The plan involved lots of mental math, plenty of worksheets of my own construction, and a constant stream of algebra in large chunks. The book was very useful for algebra word problems and two well-written chapters on logic.
The students were stoked. I assigned lots of homework and the students did every assignment, faithfully.
In 22 short weeks, with 66 class periods, the class went from a 5th-6th grade math level to the end of 9th grade. One girl named Elizabeth earned a perfect 100 on her 9th grade math Regents exam, and went on to be a biochemist. Another earned a 98, missing one multiple choice question. Lisa would win a math award at Fredonia, and is now a high school math teacher. The next three students scored 84, 82 and 81. Chad earned an 82 and went to NU for business, and now runs his own insurance agency in North Carolina.
I would continue teaching this class, voluntarily, until 2012 - for three years at St. Peter, and later at St. John in Wheatfield. Sometime later Academic Affairs would tell me that this venture is not considered Community Service, and that I should take it off my resume that was used for promotion. I took my resume back, and did rewrite it. I explained how my neighbor and good friend Clyde Burmaster was a Methodist, and considered Ransomville United Methodist Church as part of the community. Clyde was a Niagara County Legislator. I also mentioned that my good friend Shirley Urtel was Chairwoman of the Finance Committee of the County Legislature, and how her committee appropriated over 8 million dollars for NCCC. Shirley was a member of St. Peter, her two children were enrolled in the school, and her daughter was involved with equestrian activities at the same barn as my daughter. I knew Shirley very well, and I mentioned that she surely felt that St. Peter was part of the community. My kids are still friends with Shirley's, to this day.
More to come.......
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