My MEL Experiences

• Interest: In my middle school English class, Mr. Rosenberg loved to act. He assigned us a mystery novel and after we finished the story, he assigned us to groups and each team had to write their own mystery ending. We would then have to act out our mystery ending and the class would have to ask questions in an attempt to find out who the "culprit" was. Every child in the classroom was constantly engaged and their faces seemed to be lighting up with each and every mystery ending. Kids were crazily raising their hands, stumbling over their own words trying to be the first one to figure out the mystery. The activity was driven by the students' questions and curiosity. At the end of the activity, the students came away with reasoning and logical skills.
  
• Context: During a study in high school of history ranging from the Holocaust to the end of the Cold War, our teacher, Mr. Cowan, asked how many of us liked the Beatles. My whole entire class raised their hands. Mr. Cowan then said with a sly smile, "Do you think you know what their songs really mean?" He had the class hooked right then and there. Mr. Cowan assigned each of us a Beatles' song. I was assigned the track "I Want You (She's So Heavy)". Our assignment was to create a real world meaning with each song. I had to personalize this particular song to the current events happening in the world. I related the track to the Vietnam War and the draft. Other students were assigned "Revolution", "Happiness is a Warm Gun", etc. This project not only addressed the musical aspect of the multiple intelligences, but it enabled the students to create metaphors and it enabled myself to envision the song's words playing out in images of young men being dragged out into the jungle thousands of miles away. We gave the songs personal meanings and feelings.
  
• Connections: Mrs. Randolph was a crazy, old lady who wore ridiculously huge earrings and sweaters that came down to her knees. She was always making jokes in class, which seemed to relax the learning environment. She taught Ancient Western Civilization. The civilizations we studied were Greece, Rome and Egypt. For this class, she had an ongoing assignment every week: scoreboards. Scoreboards were objects that we found in the modern-day world that could be connected to the ancient past. For example, when we were studying Egypt, I found a Dave Matthews song that talked about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. My friend discovered a store in New York that sold and displayed ancient Greek pottery. She bought a small pot, took a picture of the store, and brought them into class. Although this was a small assignment, it was a blast discovering how the ancient life connected and influenced our lives. At first, it was difficult attempting to drudge up and discover artifacts with the influence of ancient times. We had some hilarious scoreboards that students found... so funny that my classmates and Mrs. Randolph had tears running down our faces from laughing so hard. Pretty soon, before we knew it, scoreboards were everywhere: it wasn't difficult to find artifacts of the past that connected to our lives. History became exciting because it was no longer a concept that we could not experience. We connected history and how it impacted our very culture. We became explorers. Discoverers. We collected everything we found until the whole entire world, past and present, seemed to fit into Mrs. Randolph's tiny classroom.
  
• Student/Teacher Relationship: Every time I saw a math problem, I cringed. My hands would start to shake and I would become extremely dizzy. It did not matter that I studied hours for the past week; as soon as a math problem was placed in front of me, all of the information I had worked so diligently to retain disappeared quicker than Houdini could say, "Presto"! I had this problem ever since I could remember. However, my sophomore algebra teacher, Mr. Roberts, taught me to stop dreading math. He formed a relationship with me that a mathematics teacher had never done before. My previous math teachers always seemed scary and judgmental. They would consistently put me in the lower classes because I could not keep up with the rest of the class. However, Mr. Roberts allowed me to feel free to ask questions without being laughed at. He spent hours with me: before school, during school, and after school. All of those hours he worked overtime were poured into helping me realize I was more capable than I gave myself credit for. He was the only teacher who realized that I needed more time on my tests and he never attempted in placing me in the lower class. He not only told me that I belonged in the advanced level, but he made me believe I belonged there. Soon, after all of the extra time spent on discovering ways I could overcome my fear of math, I began to like math. Mathematics still is not my strong suit, but I can definitely say that because of Mr. Roberts, I was able to overcome my fear of it and succeed along with the other students in the classroom.
  
• Autonomy: Every senior in my Political Studies class had a major semester project. We were assigned to design and implement a project at the school, community, or state level that was to be presented in class during the final week of the semester. I really had to dig deep to create a project that would be unique. I decided to raise money for the Boston Children's Hospital. The money raised would go to the oncology research center (the money would go to this particular department because my good friend, Jason Durkin, was there receiving treatment). The project was extremely difficult to plan. I had to come up with a way to raise the money. I decided to raffle out prizes. Second, I had to decide what I was going to raffle off. My best friend's mother worked for United Airlines and she told the airline about my project (which I began to call "The Little Warriors"). The airline generously gave me to round way trip tickets to wherever the prize winner wished to go. My second prizes were a gift certificate to a restaurant in town and a membership card to Randy's Local Gym. I advertised and created ads in the newspaper to get the town involved. I would go from neighborhood to neighborhood, from house to house collecting money. At the end of the semester, I had raised three thousand dollars and three lucky people were more than satisfied with their prizes. However, I was far from done. I had to call the Boston Children's Hospital to coordinate with the fundraiser director. I sent them a check and I received a letter from the hospital thanking me for my donations and asking me to come down and meet the children that I had helped. At the end of the year, I presented the project to my class. The feeling of pride that I felt was indescribable. I had managed to plan, coordinate, and create a project that was made a permanent option for the upcoming seniors.