New Schools Chancellor Should See how Bold Ideas Life CH School
If Cathie Black wants to learn how to run the city’s public schools, she should hop in her limo and check out a new one in Brooklyn that’s throwing education “rules” out the window.
At the New American Academy in Crown Heights – aka Public School 770 – she’ll find mostly Caribbean kids working in small circles learning in English, French and Spanish from teachers who will stay with them for six years.
“Children are not widgets, and neither are teachers,” Principal Shimon Waronker – a Hasidic Jew in a yarmulke and tzitzis, the fringed cloth Orthodox men wear under their shirts – says as he weaves through kids in crisp uniforms.
“In the system we have now, teachers are isolated. They don’t have a chance to develop.”
Waronker, 41, is all about giving kids and teachers room to grow. One recent day, a tiny kindergartner in a navy blue uniform carried her equally tiny violin to music class. Across the hall, first-graders mimed karate moves from a seventh-degree black belt.
Earlier, the kids were seated together in groups of 15, with a teacher at each of four oval tables in one loft-sized room, learning their lessons.
The four educators, from master teacher Lorraine Scorsone to apprentice Andrea Nolet, will stay with the kids until sixth grade, getting to know their learning styles better each year.
Waronker studied our education system at Harvard and found it antiquated.
So he came up with his idea for New American, where the teaching methods are modeled after those at the exclusive Phillips Exeter Academy, with advice from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education and cooperation from the teachers union.
“Children need to learn things connected to their lives,” he says. “How does water come out of a faucet? How do refrigerators work?”
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein hesitated to assign him to PS 770 for fear of a cultural disconnect with mostly Caribbean students.
But because Waronker lives just three blocks from the school, Klein agreed and let him boost the teacher-student ratio by cutting assistant principals.
His style succeeded before, at Middle School 22 in the South Bronx, where gangs dominated, bullies broke bones and some classes had only five kids because the others played hooky.
After six principals in two years, it was Waronker time. The father of six replaced teachers and suspended troublemakers. Attendance reached 93% and the school came off the most-dangerous list.
He also relates to kids from places like Haiti or the Dominican Republic who don’t speak English: He spoke only Spanish when his mother brought him here at age 12 after the death of his father, a labor organizer in Chile. He joined the Army, working in intelligence and learning things that work in education.
“I treated [gang members] like it was a counterinsurgency,” he says, noting that some MS 22 troublemakers turned into good students. “Work with them, bring them in.”
As for his current charges, Waronker says, “I have no doubt with these kindergartners, that there will be no stopping them.”
Fans in Boston
Go Shimon!!!
friends of shimon
shimon we need you as the next chancellor
chaim
this is a whole new load of b.s. im all for new ideas but the lack of structure might not be a good idea!
look at the kids who were bullied in school? they’re all very successful! the kids who were thought to be stupid are actually very smart! and the kids who had it all? they never figured out how to fend for themselves! and the “smartest” kids in class? they’re all losers who wont amount to anything in life!
Mendy Hecht
look out, Joe Clark! Here comes Shimon W. Keep going from strength to strength.
to #3
It is clear from your comment that you are a perfect example of the type of person who could benefit from a revolutionary educational system that helps eliminate biases and ignorance…
shimc1
Chaim must have missed his coffee this morning!Kvetch kvetch! We need teachers and principals like this- remember when school board elections started/ The Rebbe told us to vote and get involved because the atmosphers in the general enviroment affects us directly and indirectly- maybe someone can let us know where the sicha an be found or quote the Rebbe’s words more completely.
I hope he’s been in contact with Dr. Laz in Florida, another teacher who did positive and innovative things in the public schools
#4
wow that is amazing!
Friends of Shimon
Chaim;
i have read what you wrote and cant argue with your points;
but, here you have a guy that has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ways he has implanted in the school in the Bronx has been successful,
why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and come out with better ideas. I am not saying this because I know Shimon personally, but rather because i have seen what he has accomplished.
Its always very easy to sit back from afar and give advice and suggestions, but who are we to stand next to a giant of a man like him and say such.
May Hashem give all of us the ability to express every strength we have within us to make this world a better place with goodness and kindness, to bring Moshiach quicker.
May you be blessed with a frailichin Chanukah with the proper light for the world to see the powers of the Rebbe.
Wouldn-t it be nice
If the Lubavitcher schools in our neighborhood offered violin and karate!!!
to #9
if this was Facebook, I would “like” your comment!
to 9
keep on dreaming
to #9
if it was free, i’m sure some lubavitch schools would have violin…. most of our schools are having problems paying the regular staff as it is
golda
wow shimon keep up the amazing work, lets make this a goal for the yeshivos on crown heights.