Sixteen college students from around the nation and 50 middle school students with Mexican, Hispanic or Navajo background -- Breakthrough Santa Fe created a diverse community that inspired joy in learning this summer.
Initiated by Jim Leonard, principal of Santa Fe Preparatory School, Breakthrough Santa Fe (along with 26 other locations in the United States) is a program that aims to offer opportunities for underprivileged students to prepare themselves for high school and college. Spearheaded by director Michael Multari and assistant director Zacc Coker-Dukowitz, Breakthrough Santa Fe is built on the founding principles of the pursuit of academic excellence and the joy of learning.
Together with 15 other teachers from institutions such as Duke University and Amherst College, I arrived in Santa Fe on Aug. 4 for a two-month long internship in this red desert. We were put into nine days of teacher training involving team-building exercises, classroom management, lesson-plan writing and diversity training.
Although blueprinted on the "Breakthrough spirit" that all 26 sites in the nation embrace, Breakthrough Santa Fe is unique in its student body and location. The program serves seventh and eighth graders with a majority of students coming from Mexican immigrant families. A number of students also commute daily from pueblos on the surrounding American Indian reservations.
With most of us foreign to the American southwest, Santa Fe proved to be an exciting place to teach. Not only was it a region with a m8elange of Spanish, Mexican and native American cultures, Santa Fe was also special for its mountainous landscape and distinct architecture. One could hardly find buildings that were not designed in adobe style.
Since few of us had any prior experience in education, teacher training was a steep learning curve and especially difficult with the adjustment to the desert climate and high altitude. 16 teachers were divided into four academic departments: English, history, mathematics and science. Academic classes were taught in the morning, in addition to the electives in the afternoon that we proposed when we applied for the position. These ranged from CSI Santa Fe: Forensic Science to the journalism elective that I offered.
A typical Breakthrough day began with an energetic "good-morning" cheer by the 16 of us when the school bus pulled in at 8 a.m. We then delved into the core academic classes with curriculums and lesson plans we carefully developed under the help of mentor teachers. With only five to six students in each class, instruction proved to be effective because of the amount of individual attention we were able to give to each student.
After a 30-minute period of "Your Opportunity" when students got to choose from arts and crafts, sports, computer and dancing, students engaged themselves in the interactive and hands-on experiences in electives.
School ended at 3:30 p.m. for the students but we soon gathered in our own academic departments or committees for meetings. Hours after school ended, we would be preparing for the upcoming camping trip, discussing about the class activity for math, grading essays or writing up detailed observations and evaluations of each student's progress. Even after work, we spent much of our time outside of school improving our lesson plans, or just simply sitting around talking about the students.
With 12 to 16 hours a day of work, worrying about students and dreaming about class, Breakthrough Santa Fe gave us an extremely challenging summer. Yet in the end, a sense of fulfillment was born from that spark in a student's eyes when he understood a concept or the card he gave you telling you how much he's learned this summer. Seeing how motivated these students were, I found it difficult not to feel the same joy. Ultimately, it's all about the kids.
