Meet a Student: Jamie

What is your favorite book?

My favorite book is “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. I really enjoyed reading about the struggle of the various characters during the Dust Bowl and how the characters confronted an environmental challenge.

If you were a teacher, what subject would you teach?

If I were a teacher, I would teach math because I love numbers and the fact that there is a procedure to follow to solve each problem.

What have you learned about yourself as a student since you started with tutoring?

What I have learned about myself as a student since I started with Smarten Up is that I am capable of handling the rigors of a mainstream high school workload. This has especially been true with Ben’s support and encouragement. He has motivated me to believe that I am capable of anything to the point that I decided to take AP Environmental Science. Not only has Ben helped me, but Karla and Brendan have supported me tremendously as well. Karla helped me get through Honors Precalculus and Calculus and boosted my math confidence and abilities to the point that I want to take Calculus I in college in the fall. Finally, Brendan helped me to overcome my testing struggles on the ACT.

Since this month’s focus is on productive summer breaks, can you tell us about one summer you’ve had that was particularly impactful?

One summer I had that was particularly impactful was last summer, after junior year. It was impactful because I took an intensive two week pre-college course at Marist College in Environmental Studies. The semester course happened in just two weeks, therefore, we had high school length of classes and a college load of work. The schedule was so structured to the point that it was difficult to complete all of my work, especially the reading. However, I was able to use my studying skills and willpower to finish everything and get to bed at a reasonable time. I also learned how to live in college dorm for two weeks, which was not too difficult since I lived in a dorm for 4 years in middle school. The best part of the experience was that I found an even deeper passion for environmental science, and loved my professor. He took us on trips including going camping, to a water treatment plant, and on an old boat. This set me up perfectly for AP Environmental Science. 

Outside of school, what do you like to do for fun?

Outside of school, I enjoy exercising like going to the gym or for a run. I also enjoy being immersed in entertainment and culture so I can take advantage of all New York City has to offer. I enjoy going to the movies, museums, concerts, broadway shows, and restaurants. I also enjoy the outdoors like going for walks, playing golf, biking, and hiking.

How do you like to prepare for a test?

I like to prepare for a test by making a Quizlet for key terms, reviewing old assignments, notes, and assessments. I also like to rewrite the definitions or say them aloud in order to commit them to memory. I sometimes make mnemonics to remember terms. For math, I usually just practice problems of a particular concept repeatedly until I understand this process. This can be done for studying for any test in order to commit it to memory.   

What is your favorite word?

My favorite word is mashugana, which is a Yiddish expression meaning something that is crazy or strange.

What is one goal, big or small, that you have for the next year?

One goal I have for next year is to become more of an independent learner, especially since I am starting college in the fall and living away from family.

Meet a Tutor: Olivia

Tell us a bit about yourself! Where are you from originally, and what brought you to New York?

I was born in New York City but I moved to Costa Rica at a very young age and spent my whole life there. My parents run a bed and breakfast and coffee farm in a town called Heredia, near the cloud forest. It was very rural and very fun; I spent most of my childhood with animals: horses, dogs, cats, rabbits and a pet squirrel called Sammy. I came to New York right after college as I was interested in film and theater, and haven’t left since!

What was your favorite subject in school? 

I loved literature, both English and Spanish. I lived in a pretty vivid fantasy world as a kid and reading was always my favorite way to fully inhabit those worlds and make them my own.

Is there a particular lesson or concept that you remember learning very clearly, either because of the way that it was taught, the way you came to understand it, or the way it changed the way you look at the world? Tell us about that experience. 

I had an English teacher in high school who spoke mostly in spoonerisms and never taught what was on the rigid curriculum. At the time, most of my classmates thought that he was a little looney, but the truth is that he was teaching us to think about language in a different way. We were encouraged to read and write in the most creative, expressive way possible and to make up words if they were part of the world we had created. In a system that often teaches language in a very rigid way, having a teacher who talked to us about the meaning of life and used language in a way that demonstrated other means of expression, really opened me up to appreciate literature and philosophy in a way I might not have without him. Mr Goldfinch was indeed loony, but only because he wanted to create a generation of free thinkers and totally unique loony creatives. 

What is your favorite book?

I have so many favorite books but I love anything by the author Wallace Stegner. Other favorites include Justine by Lawrence Durrell, Middlemarch by George Eliot and I have a lot of love for great fantasy novels I read in my youth like, The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman, The Chronicles of Narnia and anything by Ray Bradbury.

What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give to every student reading this?

Express yourself however you can! Whether it is through writing, reading, acting, singing - finding something that is all your own and not dependent on the validation of others is the best way to really figure out who you are and what makes you happy! Spending time coming up with stories, no matter how weird, is also great for your critical thinking!

What’s your favorite word? 

Oh, that’s a hard one! I guess I love the word HALCYON. It sounds mythical, like a half bird-half human… and the word feels warm. I also like LANGUID and SANGUINE; I guess I just miss the slow-moving optimism of the summer (also, I love the sound of those liquid ‘u’s).

Imagine a prominent author has been hired to write your biography: what would the title be? Write us a one-sentence tagline. 

“Living Life Out Loud (and in Technicolor)”

Captivated by the human experience, Olivia has spent her life learning from and exploring a wide array of cultures, mediums and and flavors in an attempt to Live Out Loud!

How do you spend your free time?

I love to act, both in theater and film and I love to write. When I’m not tutoring I am watching movies, dancing, reading, eating and going on auditions for various projects!

What does learning mean in your life?

For me, life is learning - I approach everything I do as learning and in this way am always excited about new experiences, new people and new hobbies. The thought of having a conversation with someone from a totally different background and upbringing is incredibly exciting to me- I want to be pushed to think about things in new ways and to learn about humans across all walks of life. 

Creativity and Learning

My first teaching position was at the Parkside School, which is a school for children with speech and language based disabilities. For so many of my students, it was plain to see that standard academic assessments would not be a fitting measure of their brilliance or potential. They were masters of topics that captured their curiosity, while it was a real challenge to engage them with material that didn’t speak to their strengths or interests. 

At the same time, as a New Yorker with a lot of creative friends, I was surrounded by adults who had struggled their way through school. Some had learning disabilities that made the task of being a “good student” incredibly difficulty no matter how hard they worked, while others struggled with ADHD and were labeled “trouble makers.” Plus, there were those who simply weren’t interested in or motivated by standard academic curriculum. School was a largely miserable and disheartening experience for all of them. 

I founded Smarten Up with these two groups of learners in mind. Our guiding principle is that learning should be fun. While school is not always easy, and understanding new material is often difficult, at Smarten Up we believe that every child is capable of learning. All it takes is creative instruction. That is why we strive to connect each student’s interests to classroom material. 

April’s blog posts are a celebration of creativity and the many ways in which the arts can enrich learning. Our increasingly structured, competitive, and engaged world leaves less and less time for the sort of sensitivity, flexibility, and self-exploration that comes with creative expression. Hopefully these posts will remind all of us to make a little more time for the arts in the lives of our children (and ourselves)!

Creative Writing for the Teenage Soul

A central part of the human experience is finding effective ways to express ourselves and be understood by others. As children we can work through complex feelings, emotions, and ideas, with our parents, teachers, or a trusted caregiver. As adults we have partners, siblings, and life long friends to hash out our thoughts with. Unfortunately, though, it’s during the tumultuous teenage years when it is often feels most difficult to find a good listener. For many students, creative writing can be a great outlet that leads not only to emotional catharsis, but also to improved writing skills!

Whether writing poems, stories, plays or lyrics, the process of putting thoughts down on paper is a great way to reflect and process without fear of judgement. Troubling thoughts that might otherwise fester and breed negativity, anger, and self-consciousness can be exorcised from the brain as teens acknowledge them and attempt to move on. There is no fear of confrontation and no need to be on the defensive or offensive; instead, creative writing offers students the opportunity to reflect and hopefully learn from experience.

Apart from being a therapeutic form of self-expression, creative writing is also good for communication and problem-solving. A writer must describe an experience or scenario in a way that will make the reader fully believe and even feel the things the writer is feeling. This requires an amazing vocabulary, heightened awareness, and empathy. When students translate abstract observations and feelings into well-formed sentences and paragraphs, they are engaging in the human experience: learning, listening, and decoding. After all, storytelling is the oldest form of human communication and exists in every culture and society; when a student is able to engage another person in their story, not only does it feel good, that child is also learning how to create a meaningful social bond.

Creative writing is beneficial to students on so many levels. It encourages emotional development and self-confidence, and improves teenagers’ ability to empathize and connect with others. At the same time, creative writing also leads to academic gains as students learn how to analyze the world around them and communicate their ideas about it with more clarity and sensitivity. We are all driven to reflect on and understand our environment, and to try and make things better both for ourselves and those around us. By encouraging independence, empathy, catharsis and expression, creative writing is one of the best ways to ensure a child becomes a conscientious and well-rounded adult!

The Play’s the Thing

Even before they begin school, kids rehearse behavior and learn about their place in the world by playing pretend. Later in their development, there is much that kids can continue to learn from a more institutionalized form of pretend: the theater. 

Whether in school or out, the particular embodied storytelling of drama is a ready-made training ground for empathy and imagination. Learning to identify with characters who are different from themselves can help students practice empathy for others, and make them more capable readers and writers as a result. A student’s ability to draw connections between their own experience and the experience of a character in a play, a figure in history, or even an animal on the food chain is strengthened by the creative empathy practice of the theater — and these connections make learning far more effective. Studies have shown that the more students can activate their imagination to identify with the narrative nature of what they’re learning in school, the better they’ll retain knowledge and reach a real understanding of the material. The brain likes to think in terms of stories — and a little imagination can help transform almost any kind of content into a story with its own, memorable characters. 

Many students have trouble adapting to the discussion format of a busy classroom, adjusting to the school social environment, or dealing with the nerves of public speaking. Drama games can help build confidence that students will flex in their presentations and everyday conversations. Although they can feel silly, these games push students out of their comfort zone in a safe environment. Watching their peers take risks in getting up onstage encourages students to express themselves confidently and creatively. And when the school play rolls around, students have the chance to take some share of ownership in a deeply collaborative project, developing a sense of community that becomes a home for many. 

There’s an educational case to be made for going out to the theater as well! In a world saturated with film and television, attending a live performance requires a different, more active kind of listening. This engagement trains a careful attention that is increasingly rare in the age of screens. If your student is struggling to digest a classic Shakespeare play in school, taking in a live version can be a game changer, bringing the playwright’s words from page to stage in a way that unlocks the story. 

More than anything, theater is a fun, liberating opportunity for students to tell stories and develop their confidence and emotional intelligence. It’s an ancient tradition whose importance for expressing the spirit of the times and exploring human connection isn’t going away, even in the age of technology, and it deserves a place in our education system.

Meet a Student: Maia, 7th grade

What is your favorite book?

My favorite book is Misty Copeland’s autobiography, "Life in Motion." 

If you were a teacher, what subject would you teach?

I would teach math because I've come to appreciate the fact that there is only one right answer, but you can solve for it in ten different ways. I used to hate math, but I feel a lot better about it now thanks to great teachers and tutors. 

What have you learned about yourself as a student since you started with tutoring?

I have learned that I always need to check my writing for my most common mistakes - punctuation errors, missing words, and clear sentences. I have learned that I need to take my time when I am taking tests. I have also learned that I need to write out my study guides for tests by hand and make sure not to leave my work for the last minute!

Outside of school, what do you like to do for fun?

Outside of school I love to listen to music, dance and play guitar. 

How do you like to prepare for a test?

I like to prepare for test by looking back at my previous homework from that unit, and then I put all the answers into a study guide I make by hand. Then I like to have lots of time to review just in case I have additional questions.

What is your favorite word?

I don’t think I have a favorite word, but I have a most used word which is "seriously."

What is one goal, big or small, that you have for the next year?

My goal is to put 110% into everything I do!

Maia is also an incredible poet. Here is a piece of her work!

Butterflies, Bees and Flies...

Two distinguished groups, separating the once unified class, which makes each group its own whole. Sour bees and the salty flies create rifts in the seventh grade class. Cuddles or huddles. Awkward hi’s and shy goodbyes. The tension between the class is spreading like the flu, quietly and creepily.

There are the bees who feel the continuous pride when they are crowned champions. They speak their own language, when I try to chime in on the conversation, my efforts are met with silence. I only see a girl shaking her golden gumdrop ponytail side to side, signaling me to leave.  

The flies are always looking for trouble - getting in people’s business and gossiping to no end. This leads to slim french fry fights and never ending rumors of horribly humiliating fake stories. The more lies the flies tell, the more trouble they stir up in their goblet of alphabet soup. 

Butterflies fly wherever they wish and never have to change to fit in. That is me. The butterfly floating between groups, trying to find my place to settle. Butterflies like the peaceful quiet of a light marshmallow fluff breeze on a sunny day, and yet, it is stormy all around me. 

Meet a Tutor: Ben

Tell us a bit about yourself! Where are you from originally, and what brings you to New York?

I’m from the green Pacific Northwest, originally, but I came east to Boston for college, and then, after a year in England, to New York. In addition to teaching, I work as an actor and writer in the city.

What was your favorite subject in school? 

English, probably, or history, and then foreign languages when those began—I had the chance to study abroad in France in high school, and my favorite teacher at home was in German. My parents are both math teachers, though, so I ran the gamut. I wound up majoring in Comparative Literature, with a minor in Environmental Science and Public Policy.

Is there a particular lesson or concept that you remember learning very clearly, either because of the way that it was taught, the way you came to understand it, or the way it changed the way you look at the world? Tell us about that experience. 

I’ll swing over to my inner biology nerd for this one, because I have a very clear memory of learning about the concept of the planet’s albedo in high school—the ratio of sunlight that is reflected off the earth’s surface and how it influences climate—and understanding for the first time some part of how the Earth works almost as an organism on a macro-level, a complex web of interdependent living and non-living actors and environments. That technical lesson helped me zoom out on the globe and see myself as one small piece in the wider puzzle of life on Earth.  

What is your favorite book?

I’ve never been good at favorites, so I’ll just say that right now I’m reading The Quiet American, by Graham Greene, and enjoying it.

What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give to every student reading this?

Curiosity is your most important tool; find a way to make whatever you’re learning interesting for you, personally, and don’t expect that it will always happen automatically. 

What’s your favorite word? 

Still not a fan of favorites, but how about ‘tintinnabulation’? It means ‘a ringing or tinkling sound,’ and I’ve always enjoyed that kind of onomatopoeia, when the sound of a word conjures up its definition. 

How do you spend your free time?

I like to escape into the great outdoors, when it’s possible to get away from the city for a bit — and I also find fresh air playing pick up soccer on the weekends. 

What does learning mean in your life?

I try always to be learning, and to pass on my love of learning to others; I’ve seen how learning can transform the way I see the world, and I never want to stop. My dad recently retired after thirty years as a public schoolteacher, and this year’s he’s been learning Dutch (in preparation for a trip abroad) and how to build a wooden kayak. That’s a model I can aspire to!

Notes on the Page: Music in Education

Although state education budgets do not always reflect it, the value of music in education has been well documented in the scientific literature. Studies have shown that music training has beneficial effects for spatial reasoning, literacy, and verbal memory; recently, researchers have even developed a line of data in support of music education as a “creative and cost-effective” form of treatment for language-based learning disorders. The developing brains of young musicians benefit from the multi-modal nature of music: it involves precise physical coordination, emotional expression, and careful looking and listening, all at the same time. But it’s important to remember that there is plenty to value in music education that goes beyond these technical, cognitive gains.

One of the most important lessons in any student’s education, and one that is not explicitly taught in many school curricula, is how to be a smart and effective learner. For most students, learning to learn is something that happens over several years, in a relatively undirected, inefficient, and often frustrating process of trial and error. Taking on the challenge of a new instrument can provide a perfect learning laboratory for instilling the habits of great students that don’t come naturally to many: the discipline of daily practice, pride in easy to measure improvements (and those that are harder to quantify), knowing when and how to ask for help when encountering the unknown, struggling to get it right (and knowing that’s okay), and celebrating commitment and hard work, all in a fun and expressive environment. Much more than his or her new skill on the cello, these learning lessons will transfer over to the invaluable student skills that kids need to make the most of their education.

When students have the chance to play their new instrument as part of a young ensemble of musicians, they also develop an understanding of teamwork and collaboration that is not always on offer in the classroom. Many students dread group projects in school, and with good reason; coordinating the efforts of individuals in a group can be a social and academic nightmare. In the context of a school orchestra or band, however, collaboration and teamwork are the norm. Any ensemble experience involves learning to listen carefully and play in unison, balance different parts from the different sections, and achieve a group vision of how the piece should work, both technically and emotionally. There’s an opportunity here for students to develop leadership skills, and to support one another’s growth as members of the same section work to perfect their parts in small groups. 

Even apart from the cognitive benefits scientists have attributed to music education, trying out a new instrument provides invaluable learning experiences to young students. As a testing ground where they can learn to learn, and an inherently collaborative activity, music deserves a place in any child’s education. It’s also, importantly, a chance for kids to express themselves in a new and vital way, and to appreciate a human tradition of music that they will encounter every day for the rest of their lives. 

Learning to Learn

Our primary goal at Smarten Up is to help students become learners. We want them to learn how to read and do math, to learn about the history of our world and the science behind it, and to learn about themselves. To do this, we empower them with a robust set of tools and strategies that they can use to tackle the wide range of challenges they are likely to face in their academic careers and beyond. The key to making this happen is teaching students the difference between “knowing” and “understanding.”

Tests, quizzes, writing assignments, and classroom discussions are tools that teachers use to evaluate how effectively students have learned the material. As we know, assessments range from multiple choice and short answer questions to word problems and essays. The former evaluate a student’s rote knowledge—how well she can recall a definition or perform arithmetic; the latter gauge children’s ability to use information in order to answer a question or solve a problem. 

Genuine learning occurs when students can build their understanding of a given concept from the ground up, from knowledge through evaluation. It is the difference between cramming for an assessment by memorizing a collection of vocabulary terms, and learning those words in context, with the support of graphic organizers, outlines, mnemonic devices, and other memory aids. While the latter may take more time and effort before the test, that energy will pay off when it’s time to study for a midterm or final exam. Even if a child doesn’t remember everything, she will have an efficient set of familiar, useful resources to fill in the gaps. By taking the time to learn and understand the information the first time around, students can avoid the chaos and anxiety that comes with last-minute scrambles or disorganized efforts (or both).

This is where it becomes most important for us to teach our students about themselves as learners. We need students to understand the difference between working smart and working hard (or not so hard in some cases).  They’ve been told to create outlines before they begin writing an essay, though they often don’t do it. Teachers ask them to annotate as they read, but their books often show either pristinely clean pages or ones that are so filled with highlighted text and underlined sections that they are impossible to navigate. They have to study for a test or quiz, and often they simply reread the relevant information and declare themselves “prepared.” They are told to create a plan of attack for short-term and long-term assignments, and they simply open up their portal to look at what is due the next day. 

A large part of this disconnect is due to a lack of understanding. Students know what they should do, but they don’t always understand why or how to make those extra steps meaningful. The goal of Smarten Up’s March blog posts will be to share our favorite tips, tricks, and strategies for helping students learn how to become learners. 

Reading for Meaning

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By the time we reach middle and high school, what we learn is increasingly built on what we’ve learned before, reliant on the scaffolding of connections our brains have been constructing for us since we were crawling across colorful living-room carpets. But these connections, clusters of experience and information that help us make sense of the world, are still developing all the time — and the more that students can consciously access these categories of information and experience as they absorb new knowledge and master new tasks, the more confident and creative they will become. One of Smarten Up’s core messages to students is that learning itself is a learnable process: that the skill of being a student can be developed through a set of reflective habits and creative practices. 

Let’s consider the best habits for reading, a skill whose importance in the life of a student is hard to overstate. All of the work that students have done in elementary school to master the technical building blocks of reading fluency pays off as reading becomes a critical skill across disciplines, from biology to history, and from foreign languages to English literature. By this time, the decoding process has become more automatic, and students can put a larger share of their brainpower toward constructing meaning, analyzing connections, and processing information. While many of us remember ‘learning to read’ as young children, it is at this stage in our academic careers that we learn to read critically and deeply. 

There are concrete steps that will improve students’ ability to go past knowledge into understanding — this active reading checklist is a good place to start, with habits for before, during, and after reading. This is also where reflecting on the way we read different types of texts can be useful.  There is a clear difference between reading and writing poetry, and reading biographies of historical figures. Students should be able to approach each task with a strategy that fits its specific needs, while also recognizing the connections between distinct tasks and subject areas so that they’re not reinventing the wheel every time they approach a reading or writing assignment. One starting place is to ask: How does this content relate to what I already know? Or: how does this assignment resemble other tasks I’ve tackled in the past?

When students consider these questions, they activate prior knowledge that will shape how they understand the new content. Students should also consider, as they read, other connections they can activate to enrich the perspective they’re bringing to the text, and make the information stickier in their memory. Consider text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections. How does Hamlet’s relationship with his uncle compare to the bonds in your own extended family? Hopefully, not too closely! Can you think of any links to the often melodramatic history of royal households in medieval Europe, or the family politics in your favorite television series? What songs would you put on a moody Hamlet playlist? Ultimately, the takeaway is simple: the more that we bring with us to the reading process, the more we get out of it.