Tag Archives: Tobin

Ubuntu: Holiday Edition

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By Elwood Cook, Summit Partners/Westfield Capital Management Team serving at the Tobin Elementary School & Jack Korpob, Comcast Team, serving at the Jeremiah E. Burke High School

One of the founding stories of City Year is Ubuntu:

Ubuntu Ngumuntu Ngamantu.
I am a person through other people. My humanity is tied to yours.
-Zulu proverb

Through two accounts, we would like to share how our humanities are tied to each other and how City Year has brought us together as both roommates, friends, and brothers.

 

Elwood Cook & Jack Korpob

My name is Elwood Cook.

I spent my winter break back in Chicago, but unlike most corps members, I brought my roommate and fellow corps member Jack Korpob with me. This was Jack’s first visit to Chicago aside from layovers spent in airports. While in Chicago, we visited a number of local sites. If you know anything about me, you will know that Chicago is my favorite city.

Chicago, the Windy City, during December 2010

We visited the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), which is the tallest building in North America. The entire city can be seen from the observation deck, which features glass enclosures that jut out of the 103rd floor. You can walk out into them to gain perspective of just how high up you are. We definitely took a lot of pictures of the city and of ourselves on the glass enclosures.

Something everyone has to do when in Chicago is to visit the Lincoln Park Zoo, which features millions of holiday lights!

However, my favorite part was just spending time with my roommate and showing him the city that I love so much and talk about all the time.

I am Elwood Cook.

I am a person through other people. My humanity is tied to yours.

~

My name is Jack Korpob.

I spent my winter break in Chicago, but I had the opportunity to spend my break at my roommate and fellow corps member, Elwood Cook’s home just outside of Chicago in Crystal Lake.

A view of Crystal Lake, where Elwood's family lives.

I had a great time because I got to meet many people from Elwood’s family! I got to learn a lot about his family and had a chance to celebrate the holidays because I could not go back home to distant California. But, I had a great time meeting Elwood’s extended family and really loved playing with his dog Wilbur.

Meeting Elwood’s brothers Tom, Joe, Bill, and Jimmy, was an absolute joy because I do not have any brothers, but instead, grew up with two sisters. It was definitely a different kind of experience being surrounded by a group of brothers, but I felt welcomed by everyone.

Seeing Chicago was a highlight of my break. I did so much in short span of time, and it was the first real vacation, that did not include service work, in a long time. It was a well-timed break before coming back for the remaining months of service.

Leaving Chicago, I feel like Elwood and my friendship has grown and we came back to City Year refreshed and rejuvenated.

I am Jack Korpob.

I am a person through other people. My humanity is tied to yours.


Our humanity is still tied together, even 105 floors up into the sky!

On Perseverance

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At the end of my service year, I feel I will say that my boots grew two sizes too big over the course of the last ten months. I will look at the size nestled into the side of my dirty, but still too clean Timbs, and marvel that those seven and a halfs aren’t flopping all over the place. At the beginning of this service year, Charlie Rose, our Dean and Vice President, challenged us to really take advantage of our 1700 hours so that when we looked back on this experience, it would be one of no regrets. I haven’t quite reached the completion mark, but at the rate at which I’m going, I can’t honestly place myself in that league of extraordinary people. Sure I show up each day on time with a smile on my face and a joke in my heart. Each day I push my students to focus and endure, but it never feels like enough, and I’m afraid the odds will defeat me.

Though things are getting better, there are still too many youth dropping out of school, and I am absolutely terrified that my students will join those ranks. To teach them to be more determined about their own lives I don’t hesitate to tell them my story of perseverance through a tough situation. I tell them how I grew up in a household with little positive encouragement from adults. I had to be very self-motivated to create a bright future from a bleak present, but I pushed through to graduate high school at the top of my class and was the first person in my family to graduate from college. I’ve known tough times, but I keep my eyes open to new possibilities and work hard to make them realities.

City Year Makes Strides at the Tobin Middle School

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Written by Jon Hinthorne

This years Highland Street Foundation Team is taking groundbreaking steps at the Tobin K-8 School in broadening their reach to engage the students in the Middle School. After a long partnership with the Tobin School, City Year has teamed up with Principal Cheryl Watson-Harris to leverage the effect of having City Year Corps Members in the Tobin classrooms.

In the beginning of the school year, City Year and the school’s administration recognized an opportunity to provide tutoring and mentoring support in one English and Language Arts (E/LA) classroom in the Middle School.  Corps Member, Jon Hinthorne has previous experience working as a teacher, which made him a perfect fit for the middle school.

There are currently 10 Tobin Middle School scholars receiving one-on-one or small group tutoring as well as three whole E/LA classes receiving consistent mentoring and/or academic, whole classroom support on a daily basis. The other nine members of the HSF team are providing daily morning support of the Tobin Scholars Program at the school. The program monitors and categorizes each student at the Tobin into one of three categories: Independent, Transitional, or Supervised, which are based on the number of demerits students have received.

City Year Corps Members provide support and follow-up with students who are struggling as well as positive reinforcement to those students who are Independent.  There is a considerable amount of optimism for the City Year/Tobin partnership, and its future successes and growths.

Thanksgiving Potluck

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“My mom made her special mashed potatoes,” Javaun D. exclaimed as he ran past me into the cafeteria of the Maurice J. Tobin School.   Thursday night was the school’s annual Thanksgiving potluck dinner, to which all students in grades K-8 and their families had been invited.  Each classroom in the school was assigned a specific food to bring in order to ensure that the dinner included a variety of choices.

The dinner is held every year as a way to engage family members of students at the school.  Many parents volunteered to help set-up and serve the food, in addition to the help provided by Corps members.  The event was a success, the cafeteria filled with the sound of laughter and the friendly smiles of the families.  Students seemed carefree, and didn’t seem to worry about the homework they would have to complete when they returned home.

The dinner also gave Corps members the opportunity to talk briefly with parents about their children’s progress.  Family oriented events such as this one help Corps members to form relationships with parents or guardians of students in their classrooms

School Lunch Never Seemed So Good

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Lunchtime at the Maurice J. Tobin K-8 School, in Mission Hill, has new meaning now that corps members have begun the Lunch Buddies Mentoring Program. The cafeteria was full on Tuesday as students and corps members celebrated the kick-off party for the program. As students enjoyed ice cream sandwiches, corps members talked with their mentees about the new program.

The Lunch Buddy program was created to give students positive role models while providing them with any support they need during the school year. Each week corps members and their mentees meet to discuss important issues. The curriculum for lunchtime conversation changes weekly and covers topics such as respect, achieving goals, and behavior management.  The goal of the program is to impact student’s behavior, attendance, and socialization within the school. 

Every day of the week, corps members meet with a different student so that each student is able to meet with corps members weekly. With 28 students receiving one-on-one mentoring this year, City Year corps members are hopeful that this year will be as life changing to the students as it has been in the past.

“College Day” at the Tobin School

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“UMass Boston. Wentworth. Northeastern.” The flags of different colleges hung around the school, over doorways and on bulletin boards that adorned the lobby and classrooms.

Friday was ‘College Day’ at the Maurice J. Tobin K-8 School, located in Roxbury, MA. The teachers’ hopes were that by raising awareness about the colleges they had gone to, they would increase their students’ motivation to pursue an education beyond high school. Discussing college with elementary school students may seem a little premature; however, with the country estimating a dropout rate of 1 in 6 kids by high school, it is never too early to think about the future.

Middle school students will soon need to think about which high schools they may want to attend. Many prestigious high schools in the area require students to take an entrance exam or submit an application. Although these schools are very competitive and maintain the highest of standards, Tobin School teachers require that each of their eighth grade students apply to at least one of the top competitive high schools in the area.

The process of applying to college may be far from the minds of most elementary school students, but some already have big dreams. Fourth grader Bryan M., already talks about attending Boston University to pursue a degree in veterinary care. Teachers at the Tobin school hope that many students, like Bryan, will continue to have big dreams and the drive to make them come true.

Painting a New Future for Kids

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The Highland Street Foundation Team arrived at the Brighton, MA apartments of Bridge Over Troubled Water at 7:30 a.m. excited to begin their day of service.  On Saturday, Dec. 12th, the team, along with a group of eager volunteers, painted the rooms in each of the program’s housing units.  The organization provides a transitional living space for homeless and runaway youth, in addition to other programs.  The team was able to brighten all of the rooms in each housing unit.   The kids living in the houses were able to choose the paint colors for their rooms. This helped to make them feel as though the rooms were really their own, and safe havens that they could come home to.  By the time the team completed their service, over 35 rooms had been completely painted.

Each corps member on the team was assigned his or her own project, and served as a project coordinator for the day, organizing other volunteers in the painting.  The volunteers came from all over New England and were informed about the day of service by the band, State Radio. The members of the band are very involved with service, and for each location where they play, they set up a day of service in that city. The fan club “Calling all Crows” was created as a way to inform fans of service days in which they can participate.  The volunteers came with a surprising amount of energy and enthusiasm after having been at a late-night concert. The creation of the fan website has encouraged many young people to come out to serve, and will hopefully continue this process for the future.

Tobin Stars Rock the Ballet

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Jessica Rawlins enjoys the Urban Nutcracker with a Tobin Star.

BalletRox is a Boston-based non-profit organization dedicated to youth development, cultural diversity and dance. Each year the organization brings together local youth and their professional dance company to perform The Urban Nutcracker, a modern version of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker. The Urban Nutcracker incorporates ballet, hip-hop, and tap dance styles with classical and jazz music to create a one of a kind performance that students look forward to attending each year. This year, the students and City Year corps members of the Tobin School were privileged enough to attend the Student Matinee Program, a condensed version of the longer production that displayed some of the most memorable dances of the ballet.

Students gave the ballet generally positive reviews, commenting most notably on BalletRox’s use of multicultural dancers as well as children in the production. It is part of BalletRox’s mission to promote diversity in all facets while serving Boston’s underserved youth through a dance scholarship program. This program is funded partly by proceeds from the Urban Nutcracker.

“It takes a team to make things happen.”

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As Mayor Menino spoke these words, the corps members serving at the Maurice J. Tobin K-8 School couldn’t help but take them to heart after several months working to improve the lives of the children who attend the school. However, Mayor Menino was actually speaking of several other great initiatives happening at Tobin and Boston Public Schools (BPS) in general. On Tuesday, October 27, 2009, Mayor Menino, as well as BPS Superintendent Carol Johnson, chose the Tobin School as the venue to announce that Boston was the only city in the nation to receive a $750,000 “Arts for Young People” planning grant from The Wallace Foundation, a New York City-based non-profit organization that enables educational organizations to expand learning opportunities and develop long-term sustainability plans for expanded arts in schools.  This grant builds upon other programs such as Boston-based EDVestors Arts Expansion Initiative, a three-year venture that has currently raised $1.1 Million to expand arts education in Boston public schools, and The VH1 Save the Music Foundation which expanded its program to four additional Boston public schools, bringing its number to 36 Boston public schools. Each investment made by VH1 is valued at $60,000.

The Tobin School will benefit from the grant through its work with EdVestors. Through the generosity of EDVestors, students have expressed themselves through a Theater Arts program with Wheelock Family Theater, learned about and performed Jazz and Hip Hop Dance with Originations and Ballet Rox, and have taken instrumental music lessons at Sociedad Latina’s Music Club House.

Congratulations Tobin and BPS!

Afterschool excitement at the Tobin

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TobinImmediately after the school bell rang, you could hear the sounds of excitement as students from grades 3-5 began filing into the cafeteria at the Maurice J. Tobin K-8 School. The students in the cafeteria were about to experience the first day of the Starfish afterschool program. The corps members had been preparing for this day for weeks, creating lesson plans, making schedules, and brainstorming fun-filled games and activities for the students to participate in. The corps members’ dedication in ensuring that the Starfish program runs smoothly was evident, and the first day was off to a smooth start. 

 

After check-in and snack, the students quickly began working on their homework, to ensure that they would not need to do any work once they got home. Following homework, students were able to learn and actively participate in physical training, known amongst corps members simply as P.T. After learning some of the basic exercises, the students quickly joined in alongside the corps members, enthusiastic to show-off how well they could perform “front-side-back-side-fronts” in each and every direction. 

 

By the end of the day, both students and corps members felt excited about the afterschool program. If the first day of the starfish afterschool program at the Tobin School was any indication of how the rest of the year will be, then everyone can look forward to an amazing year!