Steve Bergen and Adjowah Scott, co-Founders of a new charter school in NYC
Tech International Charter School • “We want you!”
From New York City, Presentation in English
Target Audience(s): Teachers & Administrators Around the World Seeking One Year Meaningful and Deep Relationship with Grade 6 (age 11) Students • We are "walk the walk" people and seeking 4 schools around the world • Do you want to hear more?
Our School in the Bronx is seeking 4 Partner Schools Around the World
Each group of 20-25 students next year in our new school has one Class Captain associated with a foreign country. The goal of this organizational structure is to connect students with the international focus of the school and to enhance communication and leadership among groups of students.
- We are focused on content not glitz. We don't really want kids from the the two schools thinking of this as facebook but rather a serious academic endeavor. Yes, of course there will be some chatter about music and food but we are emphasizing content
- So kids in each country might make videos on solving a math problem or showing a science lab experiment
- It is necessary for the 6th grade teacher(s) at each end to WANT to do this and to be enthusiastic. Without enthusiasm and passion, this will will not work.
- It is important for the adults to know each other before we deal with the kids. That is why Adjowah and I will visit your school in the next few months . Even though I (Steve) am a tech person, I always know that "R" comes before "T" which means "relationships" come before "technology." Getting to know each other a bit makes the tech much easier.
- YouTube is the best method for communicating. It is very difficult to arrange exact SKYPE sessions between the kids at the two schools even though we will try. But having each side create and post YouTube video where Juan or Lanita in the Bronx make a two minute video for Alex or Barbara in Canada is much more pragmatic since it be watched by Alex or Barbara or a teacher repeatedly whenever desired
- Adjowah and I call ourselves the "No Stress No Worrying" Charter School. No teacher at either end should be stressed about how many times per month there has to be communication.
Every aspect of what we do will have elements of technology and international connections. We will pick 4 countries each year to be the connecting countries. For the sake of this write-up, let us assume that they are Ghana, Japan, France and Spain. The 100 students will be divided up into 4 classes which we will call The G class, the J class, the F class and the S class. As the students travel from math to science to English to History to computer class, there will be one teacher who stays with them. The G Class Captain teacher will be responsible for making the connections with our Ghana contacts and integrating the Ghana theme into the working day of the G time. The J Class Captain teacher will do the same thing with the J class. Meanwhile, we will have a subject teacher whose course load is teaching 4 sections of English each day. For the four major subjects, there will be four subject teachers. Each teacher will see G class, the J class, the F class and the S class each day. The G Class Captain teacher will also be the advisor to the 25 students connecting with their families and providing them with a personal adult relationship.
Are you interested? Are you convinced? See us email at sbergen33@gmail.com or watch the two videos on our ticharter.org website! Or click and read one these letters shared with our charter authorizer by teachers around the world: 1 2 3 4
ticharter.org/letters/Heidi33.pdf
ticharter.org/letters/DerrelFBrazil.pdf
ticharter.org/letters/LTR_Damianne.pdf
ticharter.org/letters/RobinNeal.pdf
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